Bungay Quotes & Sayings

Sins of omission should be regarded as far more serious than sins of commission, — Stephen Bungay

We are extraordinarily reluctant to admit that luck plays a part in business success. — Stephen Bungay

I'd like to do a play, but I can't find the right thing. I don't want it to be a starring role. I just want to play a really interesting character. — Carey Mulligan

You already know it's hard to change old ways of behaving, however good your intentions. Or is it just me who has: sworn not to check email first thing in the morning, and nonetheless found myself in the wee small hours, my face lit by that pale screen glow; intended to find inner peace through the discipline of meditation, yet couldn't find five minutes to just sit and breathe, sit and breathe; committed to take a proper lunch break, and somehow found myself shaking the crumbs out of my keyboard, evidence of sandwich spillage; or decided to abstain from drinking for a while, and yet had a glass of good Australian shiraz mysteriously appear in my hand at the end of the day? — Michael Bungay Stanier

Ebook compilation by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay — James Crosbie

Nature programmed us to think for ourselves, take risks, and seize unexpected opportunities. This in turn suggests that if an organization wants to encourage such behavior, the most important thing it can do is to identify and stop doing whatever is currently inhibiting it. To put it bluntly, it should get off people's backs. — Stephen Bungay

You've got to enjoy every day and make the best of it and go forward. — Tom Benson

Having worked out what matters most now, pass the message on to others and give them responsibility for carrying out their part in the plan. Keep it simple. Don't tell people what to do and how to do it. Instead, be as clear as you can about your intentions. Say what you want people to achieve and, above all, tell them why. Then ask them to tell you what they are going to do as a result. — Stephen Bungay

I wouldn't say I'm addicted, but I never, ever skip yoga. I use it to calm down and slow down. — April Gornik

In his book Getting Things Done, David Allen shares a crucial insight: "You can't do a project. You can only do the next step. — Michael Bungay Stanier

And even if we make good plans based on the best information available at the time and people do exactly what we plan, the effects of our actions may not be the ones we wanted because the environment is nonlinear and hence is fundamentally unpredictable. As time passes the situation will change, chance events will occur, other agents such as customers or competitors will take actions of their own, and we will find that what we do is only one factor among several which create a new situation. — Stephen Bungay

Understanding gets compliance. Only belief gets commitment. — Stephen Bungay

Sometimes I couldn't help thinking that the unluckiest thing about being the thirteenth child was having all those older brothers and sisters telling me what to do. — Patricia C. Wrede

What matters about creating alignment around a strategy is not the volume of communication, but its quality and precision. — Stephen Bungay

Do not try to predict the effects your actions will have, because you can't. Instead, encourage people to adapt their actions to realize the overall intention as they observe what is actually happening. Give them boundaries which are broad enough to take decisions for themselves and act on them. — Stephen Bungay

When all is said and done, a lot more is said than done. LOU HOLTZ — Michael Bungay Stanier

In any case, a leader who believes that he can make a positive difference through continual personal interventions is usually deluding himself. He thereby takes over things other people are supposed to be doing, effectively dispensing with their efforts, and multiplies his own tasks to such an extent that he can no longer carry them all out. The demands made on a senior commander are severe enough as it is. It is far more important that the person at the top retains a clear picture of the overall situation than whether some particular thing is done this way or that. — Stephen Bungay

This is why, in a nutshell, advice is overrated. I can tell you something, and it's got a limited chance of making its way into your brain's hippocampus, the region that encodes memory. If I can ask you a question and you generate the answer yourself, the odds increase substantially. — Michael Bungay Stanier

Five times a second, at an unconscious level, your brain is scanning the environment around you and asking itself: Is it safe here? Or is it dangerous? — Michael Bungay Stanier

Despite all her strengths, there was a certain brittleness to her. Sometimes she retreated into
her keep. Sometimes she ran away. But she did not forgive and she did not forget. — Sherry Thomas

What cannot be made simple cannot be made clear and what is not clear will not get done. — Stephen Bungay

The trouble is that organizations like processes. They are warm, familiar things and can be rolled out fairly easily. It is therefore tempting to understand strategy execution as a process, distribute the forms, get everyone to fill them in, and relax. The result will be resentment, rigidity, and stagnation. — Stephen Bungay

At least since the time of In Search of Excellence in 1980, its first blockbuster bestseller, management literature has rejected the model of a business organization as a machine and its people as robots. Managers are exhorted to stop managing and start leading, to empower people, and to master something called "change management." The volume of the volumes has become cacophonous. However, many managers remain rather confused, as there is little consensus about how empowerment is actually supposed to work. — Stephen Bungay

Bran nodded at Charles. Charles looked at the prisoners and smiled. Asil had practiced in a mirror, trying to get that smile. His own were very good, but he hadn't gotten quite the same "I'd rather rip you to little pieces, but my father says I can't - yet" effect. Asil was better at the "I'm crazy, and you are about to die. — Patricia Briggs

The city I inhabit now is not the city that I moved to in 1926; it has become a mean-spirited action movie complete with repulsive plot twists and preposterous dialogue. — Kathleen Rooney

Silence is often a measure of success. — Michael Bungay Stanier

If Clausewitz is right, no one should develop a strategy without taking into account the effects of organizational friction. Yet we continue to be surprised and frustrated when it manifests itself. We tend to think everything has gone wrong when in fact everything has gone normally. — Stephen Bungay

I told her that the pills will let her slip off and that when a person dies there comes a long clean sleep."
"That's all," Alexandria whispers, echoing after her, "a long clean sleep. — Annie Fisher