Wednesday, February 06, 2008

New pictogram for Marriage


Here is the newly developed symbol-pictogram for marriage:


Monday, February 04, 2008

Leadership Quotes

If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
- Admiral Grace Hopper

The most important quality in a leader is that of being acknowledged as such.
- Andre Maurois

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

The best example of leadership, is leadership by example.
- Jerry McClain of Seattle, WA

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time. This, and not much else, is the essence of leadership.
- John Kenneth Galbraith, U.S. economist μThe Age of Uncertaintyξ

It's amazing how many cares disappear when you decide not to be something, but to be someone.
- Coco Chanel

Leadership consists not in degrees of technique but in traits of character; it requires moral rather than athletic or intellectual effort, and it imposes on both leader and follower alike the burdens of self-restraint.
- Lewis H. Lapham

I am a leader by default, only because nature does not allow a vacuum.
- Bishop Desmond Tutu

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. . . The leader works in the open, and the boss in covert. The leader leads, and the boss drives.
- Theodore Roosevelt

In organizations, real power and energy is generated through relationships. The patterns of relationships and the capacities to form them are more important than tasks, functions, roles, and positions.
- Margaret Wheatly Leadership and the New Science

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with the important matters.
- Albert Einstein

Life is change. Growth is optional. Choose wisely.
- Karen Kaiser Clark

The quality of leadership, more than any other single factor, determines the success or failure of an organization.
- Fred Fiedler & Martin Chemers Improving Leadership Effectiveness

Don't be afraid to take a big step when one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small steps.
- David Loyd George

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality. The last is to say thank you.
- Max DePree

When what you are doing isn't working, you tend to do more of the same and with greater intensity.
- Dr. Bill Maynard & Tom Champoux Heart, Soul and Spirit

Every organization must be prepared to abandon everything it does to survive in the future.
- Peter Drucker

A friend of mine characterizes leaders simply like this: "Leaders don't inflict pain. They bear pain."
- Max DePree

Ah well! I am their leader, I really ought to follow them!
- Alexandre Auguste Ledru-Rollin

Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.
- Winston Churchill

I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don't think that's quite it; it's more like jazz. There is more improvisation.
- Warren Bennis

When the effective leader is finished with his work, the people say it happened naturally.
- Lao Tse

Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their jobs done - Peter Drucker

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity
- George Patton

Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes... but no plans.
- Peter Drucker

Leadership is understanding people and involving them to help you do a job. That takes all of the good characteristics, like integrity, dedication of purpose, selflessness, knowledge, skill, implacability, as well as determination not to accept failure.
- Admiral Arleigh A. Burke

Lead and inspire people. Don't try to manage and manipulate people. Inventories can be managed but people must be lead.
- Ross Perot

We must become the change we want to see.
- Mahatma Gandhi

A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the contrary an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops.
- General of the Armies John J. Pershing

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln

One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.
- Helen Keller

It is not a question of how well each process works, the question is how well they all work together.
- Lloyd Dobens and Clare Crawford-Mason Thinking About Quality

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The leader has to be practical and a realist, yet must talk the language of the visionary and the idealist.
- Eric Hoffer

In war, three quarters turns on personal character and relations; the balance of manpower and materials counts only for the remaining quarter.
- Napoleon I

To manage a system effectively, you might focus on the interactions of the parts rather than their behavior taken separately.
- Russell L. Ackoff

The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.
- Albert Einstein

The final test of a leader is that he leaves behind him in other men the conviction and will to carry on.
- Walter J. Lippmann

Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it.
- Marian Anderson

You may have afresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down.
- Mary Pickford

People are more easily led than driven.
- David Harold Fink

Leadership has a harder job to do than just choose sides. It must bring sides together.
- Jesse Jackson

No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself, or to get all the credit for doing it.
- Andrew Carnegie

The first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.
- Max DePree The Art of Leadership

Processes don't do work, people do.
- John Seely Brown

The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.
- Ray Kroc, Founder of McDonald's

Remember that it is far better to follow well than to lead indifferently.
- John G. Vance

The only real training for leadership is leadership.
- Antony Jay

Probably my best quality as a coach is that I ask a lot of challenging questions and let the person come up with the answer.
- Phil Dixon

The art of leading, in operations large or small, is the art of dealing with humanity, of working diligently on behalf of men, of being sympathetic with them, but equally, of insisting that they make a square facing toward their own problems.
- S. L. A. Marshall Men Against Fire

In matters of style, swim with the current;
In matters of principle, stand like a rock.
- T. Jefferson

Give us the tools, and we will finish the job.
- Winston Churchill

Friday, February 01, 2008

The Ten Habits of Highly Effective Brains

  1. Learn what is the "It" in "Use It or Lose It". A basic understanding will serve you well to appreciate your brain's beauty as a living and constantly-developing dense forest with billions of neurons and synapses.
  2. Take care of your nutrition. Did you know that the brain only weighs 2% of body mass but consumes over 20% of the oxygen and nutrients we intake? As a general rule, you don't need expensive ultra-sophisticated nutritional supplements, just make sure you don't stuff yourself with the "bad stuff".
  3. Remember that the brain is part of the body. Things that exercise your body can also help sharpen your brain: physical exercise enhances neurogenesis.
  4. Practice positive, future-oriented thoughts until they become your default mindset and you look forward to every new day in a constructive way. Stress and anxiety, no matter whether induced by external events or by your own thoughts, actually kills neurons and prevent the creation of new ones. You can think of chronic stress as the opposite of exercise: it prevents the creation of new neurons.
  5. 5. Thrive on Learning and Mental Challenges. The point of having a brain is precisely to learn and to adapt to challenging new environments. Once new neurons appear in your brain, where they stay in your brain and how long they survive depends on how you use them. "Use It or Lose It" does not mean "do crossword puzzle number 1,234,567". It means, "challenge your brain often with fundamentally new activities".
  6. We are (as far as we know) the only self-directed organisms in this planet. Aim high. Once you graduate from college, keep learning. The brain keeps developing, no matter your age, and it reflects what you do with it.
  7. Explore, travel. Adapting to new locations forces you to pay more attention to your environment. Make new decisions, use your brain.
  8. Don't Outsource Your Brain. Not to media personalities, not to politicians, not to your smart neighbour... Make your own decisions, and mistakes. And learn from them. That way, you are training your brain, not your neighbour's.
  9. Develop and maintain stimulating friendships. We are "social animals", and need social interaction. Which, by the way, is why 'Baby Einstein' has been shown not to be the panacea for children development.
  10. Laugh. Often. Especially to cognitively complex humor, full of twists and surprises. Better, try to become the next Jon Stewart (Note: I just corrected his name from "John"...which may call for a #11: Spellcheck!)