Robert I. Sutton Quotes

all great technologies are blends of other technologies.

No one on their death bed wishes they would've been meaner.

Assholes tend to stick together, and once stuck are not easily separated.

Life is too short to put up with assholes.

Vu ja de means seeing old things that are inside and outside the company in new ways.

Creativity isn't about wild talent as much as it's about productivity. To find new ideas that work, you need to try a lot that don't. It's a pure numbers game.

The best single question for testing an organization's character is: What happens when people make mistakes?

When your boss listens to you carefully, reaches out to help you, and learns from you, it enhances your dignity and pride. Doing so also helps your boss gain empathy for you, to better understand how it feels to be you and what you need to succeed in your job and life.

And the most talented people in every occupation have huge advantages over their ordinary peers. Dean Keith Simonton, who studies greatness and genius, finds that whether it comes to songwriters, composers, scientists, programmers, or filmmakers, the top 10 percent generate as much or more output than the other 90 percent.

I use job interviews for two things. First, to recruit people. Second, to get some help with my work. I give job candidates problems I can't

If you want a creative organization, inaction is the worst kind of failure.

Be wary when people tell you that they don't produce a lot, but when they do, it will be "brilliant." Remember that innovation is largely a function of productivity.

If you are a boss, ask yourself: When you look back at how you've treated followers, peers, and superiors, in their eyes, will you have earned the right to be proud of yourself? Or will they believe that you ought to be ashamed of yourself and embarrassed by how you have trampled on others' dignity day after day?

Organizations that learn from their failures forgive and remember, they don't forgive and forget.

Jeffrey Pfeffer and I found that many ineffective companies suffer from this disease, which we call the "smart talk trap."17 This a syndrome where companies hire, reward, and promote people for sounding smart rather than making sure that smart things are done. In such organizations, talking somehow becomes an acceptable - even a preferred - substitute for actually doing anything. Inaction is bad for any company. But it is especially devastating when innovation is the goal, because so many ideas need to be tried to find a few that might work.

If you can't bring yourself to encourage employees to lie down on the job, at least give them plenty of breaks. The ordinary fatigue most of us feel during the workday makes us grouchier - and dumber - as the hours go by.

Renowned management guru Peter F.Drucker looked back at his 65-year consulting career shortly before he died. He concluded that great leaders could either be 'charismatic or dull' or 'visionary or numbers-orientated,' but the most inspiring and effective managers he knew all had said we rather than I.