Quote

We're not in cultures which support learning we're in cultures that give us the message consistently: Don't mess up, don't make mistakes, don't make the boss look bad, don't give us any surprises. So we're asking for a kind of predictability, control, respect, and compliance that has nothing to do with learning.

Walter Wriston

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Walter Wriston
Age: 85 †
Born: 1919
Born: August 3
Died: 2005
Died: January 19
Banker
Middletown
Connecticut
Walter Bigelow Wriston
Give
Surprise
Surprises
Look
Asking
Cultures
Nothing
Respect
Consistently
Looks
Learning
Boss
Giving
Control
Mess
Kind
Mistake
Message
Make
Support
Messages
Predictability
Culture
Mistakes
Compliance

More quotes by Walter Wriston

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The greatest testimony to the human spirit that I'm witnessing now is the fact that people still come back to work, after all that has been done to them. They are still willing to participate for a more positive future if they would be sincerely invited.
Walter Wriston
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It is a maxim of cryptology that what one man can devise, another can unravel. This principle keeps armies of tax lawyers and accountants employed, but adds nothing to our national productivity.
Walter Wriston
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Capital goes to where it can escape taxation and be used to pay employees in sacks of rice.
Walter Wriston
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Human capital will go where it is wanted, and it will stay where it is well treated. It cannot be driven it can only be attracted.
Walter Wriston
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Many organizations are now trying to walk under the banner of The Learning Organization, realizing that knowledge is our most important product ... But the only place that I've seen it is in the Army. As one colonel said, We realized a while ago that it's better to learn than be dead.
Walter Wriston
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The Doomsayers have always had their uses, since they trigger the coping mechanism that often prevents the events they forecast.
Walter Wriston
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If we had a truth-in Government act comparable to the truth-in-advertising law, every note issued by the Treasury would be obliged to include a sentence stating: This note will be redeemed with the proceeds from an identical note which will be sold to the public when this one comes due.
Walter Wriston
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Capital will always go where it’s welcome and stay where it’s well treated. Capital is not just money. It’s also talent and ideas. They, too, will go where they’re welcome and stay where they are well treated.
Walter Wriston
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Information about money is more important than money itself.
Walter Wriston
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Every line in the government's budget has its own constituency.
Walter Wriston
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Risk is not a dirty word.
Walter Wriston
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Capital goes where it is welcome and stays where it is well treated.
Walter Wriston
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All the Congress, all the accountants and tax lawyers, all the judges, and a convention of wizards all cannot tell for sure what the income tax law says.
Walter Wriston
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I walk into all these organizations, and I'm always puzzled when I realize that people still want to be there. Most people really want to love their organizations. We need that level of commitment ... Yet organizations have done very little to deserve that kind of staying-power.
Walter Wriston
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Information about money has become almost as important as money itself.
Walter Wriston
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The person who figures out how to harness the collective genius of his or her organization is going to blow the competition away.
Walter Wriston
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Countries don't go out of business....The infrastructure doesn't go away, the productivity of the people doesn't go away, the natural resources don’t go away. And so their assets always exceed their liabilities, which is the technical reason for bankruptcy. And that's very different from a company.
Walter Wriston
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Rising prices or wages do not cause inflation they only report it. They represent an essential form of economic speech, sincemoney isjust another form of information.
Walter Wriston
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The guy with the competitive advantage is the one with the best technology.
Walter Wriston
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All of life is the management of risk, not its elimination.
Walter Wriston