100 kepner quotes

1. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global 100 Kepner Quotes Chuck Kepner’s Words of Wisdom in Innovation, Decision Making, Problem Solving, Collaboration, and more… www.thinkingdimensions.com/resources/blog/kepner

4. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Thinking about innovation… People most readily accept new ideas that are consistent with the values and concepts they already have. They tent to reject new ideas that are inconsistent with what they “know to be right.” If there is a conflict between the new ideas and the old, established ones, they try to find a way to make the new ones fit the old ones. That’s the way it has been since the days of the caveman. That is the barrier we have to face in getting them to accept the ideas of innovation.

5. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Very often, the ﬁrst alternative suggested is greeted with open arms. “Hey that’s a good idea,” and the search is over. The best ideas usually come out later, after people have had a chance to think about it.

8. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Anyone can make an ordinary decision, do the same old, indeﬁnitely, time after time. That’s safe and conservative, can’t be criticized as radical. And it can’t get anyone or anything ahead, either. So it isn’t really safe, after all.

9. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes It is useless to tell other persons, “Now think creatively.” HOW? What do we DO? But it is easy to teach others a series of behaviors, a process to follow when a decision has to be made. Do this, do that, do another thing. Then, when a creative conclusion emerges, these people will say, “Wow! We thought of this ourselves!” And they will be right!

10. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes You don’t teach how to be innovative or creative. It’s there as a characteristic of the human animal. You create the conditions within which it can come out and be active.

11. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Ideas are not ephemeral, pixie-like packages of information ﬂoating in the air. Knowledge for any individual comes from experience, whether that be from books, lectures, incidents that have been observed, or face-to-face encounters.

12. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes As the storehouse of knowledge grows, so do the possibilities of associations between the items tucked away in the recesses of the brain. Combinations are formed and more complex associations are ﬁled away. As you know more, you can do more with what you know.

13. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Why are some companies more successful than others?... …We don’t think it’s a mystery. We think it’s the quality of thinking in the organization. They come up with innovative solutions to their problems more often than others.

14. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes “If you could only bottle that and sell it,” we said, “You could do wonders. The world would be yours.” Well, now you can. You can engineer Logical Innovation, and apply it and control it, whenever and however you want.

15. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes From a fantasy wish of a few years ago, innovation and creativity have now become a reality tool for any manager to use to guarantee progress and improvement. Learn it, use it, and enjoy being out in front of the pack.

16. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes The invention, the ﬁnished product, was the result of sifting through vast bodies of information to ﬁnd combinations of ideas that could be translated into reality, into an entity that would work in the practical world.

19. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes When most people speak of innovation or creativity, they think of some ability that is mysterious and ephemeral, a capability that some people have and others don’t, and that lies beyond the bounds of logic and rationality, something almost magical. We disagree. We think that innovation is a supremely logical act.

21. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes What is an innovation? It is the combination of elements that have not been combined before, to perform a speciﬁc function. It is a new way of doing something, better than the previous way.

22. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes [Thomas Edison] had an idea about an electric light. He talked it over with some of his people and they decided on what they would have to know to make a successful design… Finally they were able to pull all their ﬁndings together and voila! There was the light! He got the credit, as he should, but they all made contributions, without which there would have been no light.

25. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Over the last twenty thousand years, the process of innovation has created the world as we know it, and will continue to re-create the world of humans for all the foreseeable years to come. Innovation is the backbone of civilization. Without it, we would be nothing.

26. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Steel wool had been around for a long time. Someone added soap, gave it to the housewives as a new type of scrubbing pad, and made a million dollars. Someone added ridges to the wire paper clip and made another million bucks. You know the stories and they’re all true. If you want to get ahead and be creative, add something new to your decisions, go beyond what has always been done.

29. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes We exist in a competitive society. One manager makes a few more creative decisions than the others, and he or she is a genius. One organization ﬁelds more creative decisions than the others and it becomes a leader in the industry… If you want to get ahead, learn how to reach out for that additional idea or fact that will make your decision creative.

31. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global The fate of the organization is determined by the sum-total of the decisions made in its behalf. It can never be greater than those decisions provide, although it can quickly become less as other poor decisions undermine the good decisions that have been made. #KepnerQuotes

32. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global Questionable decisions are being made all the time, based on questionable decisions that were made last week and last year, and far back into history. #KepnerQuotes

33. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global “When in doubt…”, you should pull someone else’s thinking into the equation. What can you lose? Nothing, compared to what you would gain if you found just one little critical fact that would make a diﬀerence. #KepnerQuotes

34. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global Research has shown that half the decisions that are made in big organizations are failures, can’t be implemented, or don’t do the job if they are put into eﬀect. Mix in politics and religion and a raw thirst for power and self-interest, and the score is even worse. And these are the decisions which determine how we and our children will live for the next umpteen years! #KepnerQuotes

35. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global Nothing happens until someone makes a decision. Until someone says, “We’ll do this,” nothing moves, nothing changes. It’s a basic law of physics. Until some new force and direction enters into the picture, everything is static and at rest. But there’s more to it than that… #KepnerQuotes

36. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global There is no progress, no improvement over what has been, unless someone has made a CREATIVE DECISION. Not just any decision, but one which incorporates new ideas or a new way of viewing old ideas. #KepnerQuotes

37. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes The results of solitary decision making are usually not outstanding, although there are rare exceptions. Decisions made in the secrecy of one skull are most often forced upon the outside world, implemented by edict, and accompanied by the questionable plaint, “This will really be good for you and you’ll grow to like it.” #KepnerQuotes

38. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Events are dictated by decisions, and many, if not most, decisions are pure damn lousy. If we can but plant a seed of dissatisfaction and a glimmer of how to make them better, we will have contributed a whole heap to our culture and its history. #KepnerQuotes

39. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes All I can say, after forty-four years, working with hundreds of organizations in sixty diﬀerent countries, is that I know of only who things about management that are always true, everywhere, at every level, all the time. The ﬁrst is “Nothing happens until a decision has been made.” And the second is “If the decision you are making now isn’t better than the last one you made, you’re in trouble.” #KepnerQuotes

40. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes It’s hard to tell what all the consequences of an act might be, but you owe it to yourself to use all the information you can get to make the very best decision you can, and at least try to see what undesirable eﬀects it might also create. Perhaps that will lead you to be a little more careful. #KepnerQuotes

41. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes A decision is like the ignition switch in your car. It starts things. Until it is turned, your car and your organization consist of a bunch of inanimate parts waiting for the juice that will bring them alive and let them do what they were intended to do. #KepnerQuotes

43. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Every decision is a bridge from here to there, from where you are to where you want to be. It follows the same process that is followed by the master engineer: ﬁrst, an abstract vision, then the abstract requirements needed to make it so, and ﬁnally, the physical acts and conditions which will translate the vision into a successful entity within the world of reality, that will satisfy the purpose for which it was conceived. #KepnerQuotes

44. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Very few bridges collapse because of inadequate design, but a lot of business decisions do. Our experience suggests to us that two-thirds or more of the decisions made by management are not nearly as good as they could be. Why? Because managers don’t have to be as careful as bridge builders and the results aren’t so visible. #KepnerQuotes

46. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes …we have found that most decisions that fail, do so because vital information, readily available to the decision maker, was ignored and not used. #KepnerQuotes

47. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes In almost every case, business decisions fail because the truth of the reality situation has not been fully understood by the decision maker. #KepnerQuotes

48. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes If you are a manager, and want to get from here to there, build a decision bridge that is complete, stout, easy to implement, and will be serviceable for a long time. #KepnerQuotes

49. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes A decision is good if it lays out a clear course of action that is consistent with the reality within which we exist and moves our interests forward. That is to say, it works. #KepnerQuotes

50. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Managers who make good decisions, time after time, anticipate the kinds or categories of information they will need, before they ever try to formulate alternative actions. #KepnerQuotes

51. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes If you want to make a decision which will be used and will last, make a creative one that incorporates the best thinking of your informed, key people. #KepnerQuotes

52. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes “Nobody told me,” is a hell of a poor excuse for having a decision fail, just as “I didn’t know it was loaded” is a weak reason for having an unexpected problem or consequence come up after a decision has been made, although they are put forward time after time. #KepnerQuotes

54. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes CREATIVE DECISION MAKING: It took the opening up of our thinking, and the interchange of our information, and the combination of our thoughts to create this new and better process. #KepnerQuotes

55. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Looking back, in my forty-plus years of experience, I am not aware of ANY decision that has broken through to new ground without the help of new information supplied by new sources. #KepnerQuotes

57. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Every decision you make must be a creative decision or you’re cheating your organization and throwing away an opportunity that will never come again. #KepnerQuotes

58. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes A decision is the product of many separate judgments, arranged in a logical sequence, each step contributing to the next. A creative decision is one that reaches out at certain steps, for additional information that would otherwise be missed if an extra eﬀort were not made to pull it in. #KepnerQuotes

59. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Every decision requires a clearly deﬁned objective, and every decision can only move forward if speciﬁc requirements or criteria are delivered from that objective so a judgment can be made as to which alternative best does the job. #KepnerQuotes

60. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes If decision making is THE critical act of management, upon which all else depends - and we say it is - then equipping your people to reach out beyond the ordinary is the wisest investment you can make. #KepnerQuotes

61. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes By reaching out to others who might well know something we don’t know, and opening up the thinking of the decision makers to new data and new ideas, at certain critical points in the process, we have made it possible for entirely new solutions to emerge. #KepnerQuotes

63. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes The state of the organization exactly reﬂects the ability of its decision makers. They make it what it is and what it will or can ever be. So if you want to improve the organization, improve its decision making. #KepnerQuotes

64. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Think what might happen if every decision that is made, and every problem that is solved, reached out in such a way for the new and better result? I don’t know what it would be like, but I’d like to ﬁnd out. #KepnerQuotes

67. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes I suppose there are problems and decisions that are dead ends. There is no answer, no solution, no action is possible. I can only say I have never met such a situation. There has always been some forward motion, some progress toward a better resolution. #KepnerQuotes

68. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes All that was necessary was to bring these informed people together and get them to thinking in concert about the same thing. The power of their combined knowledge solved the problem in half an hour. Of course, if these people had been invited to make inputs to the plan in the ﬁrst place, all this ﬂap would have been avoided… #KepnerQuotes

70. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes You visualize the ideal outcome. You visualize the ideal solution to your problem in detail, as it would be when in place: what it will look like, what it will do for you and your organization, what it will have to be in order to achieve your purpose. This ideal result is your target. #KepnerQuotes

71. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes You reach out by expanding your view of the possibilities. If you go to the same old sources and get the same old facts, you will produce the same old answers. #KepnerQuotes

72. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes When there’s a leak in the boat, the ﬁrst priority should be to stop it. When an organization is bleeding eﬀort, money, and opportunities wasted because of questionable decision making, perhaps it’s time to upgrade and modernize the abilities of its managers. #KepnerQuotes

73. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Ask questions, search the information out. Someone knows something that you don’t, otherwise you’d have solved the problem long ago.     If you don’t reach out, you’ll never know. #KepnerQuotes

75. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes The knowledge and information about how to make the information more practical and simple and what bugs to expect are held by those people to the level at which the actions will be implemented. #KepnerQuotes

76. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes We teach that decision makers should reach out for the inputs of others, because the body of relevant information is too large and complex for any one or two persons to have it all. If any doctrine can be taken as true and invariable, in my judgment and experience, it is this. #KepnerQuotes

77. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes No one knows everything there is to know, no matter how much of a genius he or she is. Everyone has to learn, from infancy on up, bringing in knowledge from the outside. It can’t come from any other place, can it? #KepnerQuotes

78. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes You get the task, reach out for relevant information and experience; you give it room and freedom to be expressed, understood, and combine with other ideas; you narrow down to the most feasible, then you guide them through the steps that will allow them to put their ideas into a streamlined practical action. #KepnerQuotes

79. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Most managers have resident values and concepts like these: • I am the leader. Don’t nobody challenge what I say. If I said it, it’s law! • I know more than you do. That’s why they pay me big bucks! • It’s a sign of major weakness to accept what someone lower on the corporate ladder says is right, particularly if I think somewhat diﬀerently. • My colleagues will think I’m an undigniﬁed wimp if I go around asking for advice from people who aren’t in their league. #KepnerQuotes

81. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Humans dislike having actions forced on them when they don’t understand how or why they have come about. They feel they have been left out, that their needs and valid experience have been ignored, and that there is some ulterior motive that has occasioned the secrecy. #KepnerQuotes

82. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Talk without a structure or process to follow is rambling chit-chat. It has no place to go because no pathways have been marked out for it. #KepnerQuotes

83. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes It all boils down to this: outstanding managers are quickly able to get their people to collaborate, to think and work together in a parallel fashion, so they can beneﬁt from the experience and knowledge of their best informed colleagues. #KepnerQuotes

84. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Thinking together, using all the brainpower available and all the experience gathered over the years makes more sense than continuing to rely upon the trial and error method of putting people together and hoping that something good will come from it. #KepnerQuotes

85. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes We can consciously create the conditions and skills of collaboration. And when we do, we help create better managers who can make better decisions and ﬁnd better answers to the questions that face us all. #KepnerQuotes

86. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes The knowledge of others is a blessing, an untapped, underutilized resource that is asking to be contributed. Take it. Explore it. Mine it for the help it can give you. It’s free and it works! #KepnerQuotes

87. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes You don’t have to know everything yourself. You only have to know HOW to reach out for the new ideas, new techniques, and new relationships, in order to produce a better decision. Once you know how, you can be creative every time you turn around. #KepnerQuotes

88. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes If a stalemate exists, it is because the needed information is not available and can’t be supplied by the sources that have been tapped. There is a need to shuﬄe the deck, bring in new people who have had diﬀerent experiences and know some item of information that has not been considered before. #KepnerQuotes

90. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes The dynamics of thinking, logic, wisdom from experience, and the ability to diverge to ﬁnd new ideas, and converge to put them all together in a practical way, apply equally to the individual and to the individual working with other people. #KepnerQuotes

91. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes By integrating divergent-convergent thinking into the problem solving, decision making process, I believe we have found a way to insert creativity into decision making. #KepnerQuotes

92. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes The process is simple: Open up to new ideas, combine them, narrow down to what will work in the real world. Then reﬁne it, ﬁne-tune it, remove the barriers to its success. Divergent, convergent. #KepnerQuotes

94. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes If there are new experiences to be had, this process will uncover them. Not that much uncovering is needed; they will ﬂow out as though under hydraulic pressure. The people who have new information want to share it, want it to be recognized and understood. New ideas will burst out if you give them a chance. And this creative process does just that. #KepnerQuotes

97. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Then, sitting in a bar and thinking over my misspent life, I came to the startling conclusion that all the wondrous decisions and problem solutions I had led others to, wasn’t because I was all that smart but rather because I had the right people there, who knew the stuﬀ that was needed, and asked the process questions that would get them all thinking about the same thing at the same time. I made them reach out and stretch their brains. Voila! #KepnerQuotes

98. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Reminds me of the time I was poled up a river in Fiji in a dugout canoe by a man in his late twenties, seven feet tall and four feet wide, wearing a skirt and weight at least 295 pounds, singing in a high falsetto like he was a 10-year-old from the Vienna Boys Choir. Look straight ahead, Kepner, and don’t smile. Remember his pappy ate people like you. #KepnerQuotes

99. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Everything works out if you wait long enough. Sooner or later, the opportunity for a big move forward comes along. If you are ready, alert, and willing to go, sooner or later you will get the propitious chance. #KepnerQuotes

100. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Don’t talk or write unless you have something to say. If this dictum had been followed since the birth of the alphabet some 6,000 years ago, think how much further along we’d be! #KepnerQuotes

102. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Few things happen that have never happened before, that cannot be fore- shadowed by a recollection and understanding by someone, of what has happened in the past. #KepnerQuotes

103. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes To understand an event – past, present, or future – you must ﬁnd the tracks that exist from this or similar events and interpret them, and so reconstruct the message about what has taken place or is about to. #KepnerQuotes

104. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes The old folks used to say that cream rises to the top. It does, although sometimes it is slower than you would like. But excellence in managing will be recognized. #KepnerQuotes

106. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes Most progress comes by tiny increments, little steps one after another. The ﬁrst airplane we saw up close and got a ride in was a World War 1 Jenny, built in 1917, two open cockpits in a bi-winged contraption of wood and fabric and wire. The last time we ﬂew across the Atlantic was in a Boeing 777, representing 85 years of progress. Not in a huge leap from Jenny to 777, but a series of millions of little improvements to the craft and knowledge of aeronautics. #KepnerQuotes

107. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global #KepnerQuotes …if we make it too clear and easy, people won’t think we’re professionals or that we’re teaching anything important. Pride and ego! But if it turns out to be more useful… maybe they’d remember us for something even more outstanding than our professionalism and lofty gobbledegook. #KepnerQuotes

108. © 2015 Thinking Dimensions Global 100 Kepner Quotes www.thinkingdimensions.com/resources/blog/kepner @TD_Global ThinkingDimensionsGlobalConsulting thinking-dimensions-global-consulting +Thinkingdimensionsglobal

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