GROSS INCOMPETENCE

‘You, sir, are unfit to run a whelk stall let alone a PAID FOR SERVICE. Stand down, please, and let someone with more clout, more guts, more pride and more self-respect take over.’

Source: Mail of complaint titled 'Gross Incompetence' from Guardian Crossword user.
Ref: http://www.guardian.co.uk/crosswords/2008/may/06/crossword-editor-update1

GOOD DAYS AND BAD DAYS

‘Sometimes you are the hammer, sometimes you are the nail. Today I was the nail but I have been the hammer many times before'.

Source: Lance Armstrong (following his day of three crashes in the 2010 Tour De France).

GETTING OUTSIDE YOURSELF

'The trick is being able to get outside yourself and work from outside and watch yourself as an observer.'

Source: Virginia Wade

DON’T COMPROMISE

‘Don’t compromise, use the right equipment, use it the right way, go back and start again’.

Source: Ron Dennis (MacLaren F1 Team Principle) quoted in advert for an engineering company.

PREPARATION, THE AVOIDANCE OF SURPRISE

‘Nothing should ever come as a surprise. If something I haven’t anticipated comes as a surprise, I haven’t prepared properly’ [commentary: a bit like a downhill skier going through the course in his mind first]

Source: Andy Green (land speed record holder)

INTELLIGENCE AND HORSEPOWER

‘I like to think of intelligence as equivalent to the horsepower of a car. There may be a powerful car driven badly and a humble car driven well’.

Source: Edward De Bono

AGGREGATION OF MARGINAL GAINS

‘Once you understand this phrase, it’ll change your life...the desire of every member of the team to achieve an aggregation of marginal gains...it means breaking down cycling competitions and events into all of its component parts – and then trying to get improvements in every single area that may affect performance'.

Source: Dave Brailsford

THE GRADUATE

‘I want to make myself indestructible and indispensible.’

Source: A quotation from a graduate. Creative Review magazine (Sept 2010)

EATING HONEY

‘Although Eating Honey is a very good thing to do, there is a moment just before you begin to eat it which is better than when you are.’

Source: Winnie the Pooh (A. A. Milne)

FAILING EVERY NOW AND AGAIN

'If your not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.'

Source: Woody Allen

SOLUTIONEERING

‘I always feel like there is a solution’

Source: Nolan Bushnell (founder of Atari)

SUCCESS FROM A PROCESS POINT OF VIEW

'Though he says there isn't anything secret about it, it is the simple application of method. Plus a belief in this presiding psychology: a sports practitioner simply needs to be the best they can be and then everything else will follow.
"You can't do better than your best," he says. "So what we have to do is ensure that every single rider performs at the absolute best of their ability. If that ability is going to be good enough then fantastic, but if it is not, it's not."
That doesn't sound particularly revolutionary. It sounds, in fact, more like a prep school games master telling his losing under-10 side that the score really isn't important, it's the taking part that counts.
"I know it sounds a bit woolly, but I know what we are saying. If Bradley [Wiggins] can be his absolute best throughout the Tour and perform to the highest level he can perform, that is success from a process point of view. If you start looking at the outcome in terms of just the result it is impacted on by so many other variables that you are putting yourself and your team under an massive amount of unnecessary pressure. The one thing you are in charge of is being your best." '

Source: Dave Brailsford http://www.telegraph.co.uk

WEB PAGE WEIGHTS

‘A picture is worth a thousand words, but it uses up three thousand times the memory’.

Source: Anon

PEOPLE TRUMP PROCESSES

People trump processes.
Process is only a second order effect, the unique people, their feelings, qualities and communication are more influential.
Some problems are just hard, some people are just difficult.
These methods are not salvation.

Source: Alistair Cockburn (Agile methodologist)

FOCUS ON THE ROUTE YOU WANT TO FOLLOW

'When negotiating steep drop offs on a mountain bike, be careful to only look at the route you want to follow. If you instead look at where you are afraid of the bike going, then in nine out of ten times you will end up there'.

Source: Advice from my Club Mountain Bike Instructor

(Walt: Probably applicable to other aspects of life).

I STAND UPON MY DESK

‘I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things from a different way. The world looks very different from up here. Just when you think you know something, you have to look at it in another way.’

Source: The character of John Keating in the film Dead Poet’s Society.