We are roughly half-way through the World Business Forum’s agend.  Below are some of my favorite nuggets to this point:

 

Patrick Lencioni

 

Life is simple, and really difficult.  It is not complex.

 

We spend most of our time trying to make our organizations SMART, which is fine, but we need to spend more time making our organizations HEALTHY: Minimal politics, confusion, morale, productivity, turnover.

 

When we don’t have conflict around ideas and issues, it always ferments into conflicts about people.  That destroys teams.

 

David Rubenstein

 

We had better get used to the fact that the Dollar is not going to be the reserve currency of the world.

 

Think of yourself as an owner.

 

Improve your skills of persuasion.  The truth is we’re all salesman.

 

Jeffrey Sachs

 

We have ended the panic of liquidity by making sure short term lending, etc, can continue, we bailed out some big companies.  But have we seen a fundamental change in MONEY and POLITICS in this country?

 

Because of this, our policy is still being written by Big Money Interests behind the scenes.   The debates we see in the public are largely side shows to hide the real machinations in the back room.

 

China is now the banker of the world.

 

We have to re-engineer our political system better to reintroduce the voice of the American people.

 

T. Boone Pickens

 

The first billion is the hardest, which is true, because I was 70!

 

It takes just as much time to do a small deal as it does to do a big deal.

 

Green Zealots throw around some funny ideas.  I said to them, “Do you guys realize the consumer is the same guy that votes?”

 

We’re not very smart on how we manage energy in America, and the reason is because we’ve had cheap oil. If we keep on, we’ll be importing 70% of our oil, and we’ll be paying $300 per barrel for it within ten years.”

 

How do you drive change? Leadership, no matter where you are or what you are talking about. If you don’t have leadership, the whole thing drifts and you’ll get nothing until a leaders shows up.

 

Don’t manage, lead.

 

We have not a single call for a single barrel of oil in IRAQ, after losing 4,000 people in the war there.

 

Kevin Roberts

 

The consumer is not a moron, she’s your wife.

 

It’s not about a market it’s about a movement.  It’s not about brands it’s about participation.

 

Life’s for sharing.

 

Let emotion rip. 80% of our decisions are made emotionally.

 

Logic leads to conclusions, but emotion leads to action.

 

George Lucas

 

I realized that, not only did I love doing this, but I was really good at it.

 

I love making movies, I am passionate about it, and I never cared that much about making money.  What I really want to do is make movies.  Movies are an art form.  My definition of art is a way of communicating emotions from one human being to another human being.  For the most part, that involves technology. 

 

Art is a popular medium; it’s a way of telling stories to the people that are meaningful in a connecting kind of way.  People are moved emotionally without knowing why.

 

I had to write it because I’m the only one who knows the story that’s in my head and the way I want to tell it.  I’m the only one who knows the universe.

 

It doesn’t have much to do with the ability to write, it has to do with the ability to tell a story.  Telling a story ends up being very personal.  A great writer just has to get the story out.