Collected Meditations
Showing 24 quotesBragging about yourself violates norms of modesty and politeness - and if you were really competent, your work would speak for itself.— Adam Grant
topics:
Work
Takers believe in a zero-sum world, and they end up creating one where bosses, colleagues and clients don't trust them. Givers build deeper and broader relationships - people are rooting for them instead of gunning for them.— Adam Grant
topics:
Trust
It's ironic that when you go through a tragedy, you appreciate more. You realize how fragile life is and that there are so many things to still be thankful for.— Adam Grant
topics:
Thankful
One of the signs of a bad coworker is a pattern of persistent undermining - intentionally hindering a colleague's success, reputation, or relationships.— Adam Grant
topics:
Success
When people are depending on us, we end up finding strength we didn't know we had.— Adam Grant
topics:
Strength
From a relationship perspective, givers build deeper and broader connections.— Adam Grant
topics:
Relationship
To make sense of bossiness, we need to tease apart two fundamental aspects of social hierarchy that are often lumped together: power and status. Power lies in holding a formal position of authority or controlling important resources. Status involves being respected or admired.— Adam Grant
topics:
Power
Complex tasks are often better handled in the back of our mind, and that's often true of creative tasks - when you have something complex to deal with in writing or research or responding to an email. I'll start working, put it aside, and sometimes I'll wake up the next morning with a solution, or I'll find one when I exercise.— Adam Grant
topics:
Morning
When medical students focus on helping others, they're able to weather the slings and arrows of long hours and devastating health outcomes: they know their colleagues and patients are depending on them.— Adam Grant
topics:
Medical
If we want girls to receive positive reinforcement for early acts of leadership, let's discourage bossy behavior along with banning bossy labels. That means teaching girls to engage in behaviors that earn admiration before they assert their authority.— Adam Grant
In the conversation about women in leadership, male voices are noticeably absent.— Adam Grant
topics:
Leadership
For women to achieve equal representation in leadership roles, it's important that they have the backing of men as well as women.— Adam Grant
Instead of assuming that emotional intelligence is always useful, we need to think more carefully about where and when it matters.— Adam Grant
topics:
Intelligence
The culture of a workplace - an organization's values, norms and practices - has a huge impact on our happiness and success.— Adam Grant
To get important work done, most leaders organize people into teams. They believe that when people collaborate toward a common goal, great things can happen. Yet in reality, the whole is often much less than the sum of the parts.— Adam Grant
When takers talk about mistakes, they're usually quick to place the blame on other people. Givers are more likely to say 'Here's the mistake I made; I learned the following from it. Here are the steps I'm taking to make sure I don't let people down in the future.'— Adam Grant
topics:
Future
The more important argument against grade curves is that they create an atmosphere that's toxic by pitting students against one another. At best, it creates a hypercompetitive culture, and at worst, it sends students the message that the world is a zero-sum game: Your success means my failure.— Adam Grant