David Perell: “Compression is the essence of good writing. The more you compress your writing, the more quality ideas you’re able to share in fewer and fewer words…Whenever I talk to [good storytellers], I tell them to set a 60-100 second time limit and speak out the entirety of what they’re trying to say. It’s like an elevator pitch. The time is limited and you have to tell the entire story. I’ve noticed that verbalizing ideas naturally helps people get to the point and identify the essence of what they’re trying to say. Once they’ve done so, I tell them to write down exactly what they said.”
FT: “Don’t wait for an exit interview to talk to employees — the ‘stay’ interview helps retain them in the first place…Stay interviews could head off an employee’s desire to leave, as well as allowing the company time to make a counter-offer. They also encourage managers to understand the worker, their values and career aspirations. Such discussions can be symbolically significant, says D’Souza. Organisations and leaders are not always great at providing recognition and showing that employees are valued. “The very act of asking the questions shows that they care. If you sit down with a manager and discuss how to improve things, how long are you going to stay, most people will welcome that conversation.””
Rita McGrath: “A big mistake we see organizations make when they try to push into new territory is that they try to apply the same logic to a well-understood, repeatable business that they do to an uncertain new one. One of the most significant ways this happens is that once an idea has made it through the corporate approval process, its proponents and champions assume they are going to bring it to commercial launch. It’s smarter to realize that many projects that might have sounded good at the drawing-on-a-napkin stage aren’t going to go on to be successful businesses. It doesn’t mean they weren’t useful, it just means that particular direction isn’t going to work out.”
