Cynicism is the last refuge of those who don't want to do the work of creating a better society. Robert Reich More Quotes by Robert Reich More Quotes From Robert Reich More and more, leadership, whether it's profit or nonprofit, is about recruiting and keeping talented people. That's the biggest challenge. Yes, you've got to create systems that will enable people easily to innovate continuously; you've got to be a system-builder. But finding and keeping geeks and shrinks is the biggest challenge. That means leaders have got to be salespeople, they've got to be recruiters, and they've got to be actively able to understand and keep the talent they have. Leadership is courtship. That's what it's becoming. Robert Reich leader mean people Now, inventiveness and empathy, those qualities, if they're together in the same person, you've got an entrepreneurial genius. But they do tend to be slightly separate. Robert Reich empathy quality together What characteristics are most important in creative workers? One quality you need is inventiveness. You need to be able to take whatever product or service you are providing and figure out ways of making it better, faster, cheaper. The other quality is empathy and insight into what people might want, even though they don't even know their wants, probably because there's no product or service to test their wants. Robert Reich empathy creative people If you're going to be a great guide to what's great for consumers, and, indirectly, for investors, you've got to be very careful about who you contract with and what you're offering. Robert Reich investors careful I think it's hard to have a brand portal and an economy of trustworthiness in one of them that sloshes over into another. But saying that there will be only a limited number of these giant brand portals doesn't mean a limited number of companies; it doesn't mean that everybody's going to be working for these companies. Quite the opposite. Most of us will be working through much smaller entities that simply use these portals as vehicles for getting and identifying customers. Robert Reich portal mean thinking It's very hard to establish an economy of trustworthiness. The key is continuing to innovate and to keep your customers through innovation, because the customers can leave. But once you are a dominant player that continues to innovate and provide a good deal, customers will stay with you. Robert Reich trustworthiness innovation player In entertainment, the technology began giving us greater choice and easier switching before almost any other area. The studios became much more dependent on the stars, not just star actors and directors but also star technicians, star cinematographers. It's a very important evolution in terms of understanding why people are working the way they're working. Robert Reich technology giving people I, from the luxury of my laptop computer, can summon extraordinary bargains on everything I want, and I can also move my savings anywhere. This ability to choose more broadly and to switch more easily is the central fact of modern economic life. Robert Reich modern computer moving Technology enables consumers and investors to have extraordinary choice and ease of switching, which, in turn, stimulates much fiercer competition than ever before, which, in turn, makes it imperative for every institution to innovate like mad. That innovation is powering our economy these days, and it requires companies to find and utilize creative workers. That's the most important syllogism going; technology is embedded in that syllogism, but it's not as if we're seeing these productivity gains because of the technology. Robert Reich mad technology choices Today, for good or ill, people are thinking about many social problems from the standpoint of their own kitchen tables. I think the way to begin a conversation with people about what's going on is to address their daily experiences, and what their fears and frustrations, as well as their exhilarations, are. Robert Reich frustration people thinking Now we're in a very different economy. Throughout the late 1980s and 1990s American management started to do the right things. There was extraordinary investment in technology. The dominant questions now are less how to do it better, how to manage better, how to make the economy better, than how to have fuller and more meaningful lives. Because the irony is, now that we've come through this great transition, even though our organizations and our people are extraordinarily productive, many feel that the nonwork side of life is very thin. Robert Reich technology meaningful people It's almost as if we have two lobes in our brain. There's the consumer and investor mode, and we're doing better and better at that lobe. But at the producer and seller mode, we have to work harder and harder. And the better we do as consumers and investors - the easier it is for us to choose something better, to exit every commercial relationship - the harder we have to work as sellers and producers. One follows from the other. Robert Reich work-harder hard-work brain I think that it's difficult to talk about large questions of economics or social policy without understanding the building blocks of society. And those building blocks are organizations, the people who run them, and the people who work in them. Robert Reich block running thinking You and I and almost all Americans are beneficiaries of the new economy. But we are also losing parts of our lives to the new economy - aspects of our family lives, our friendships, our communities, ourselves. Robert Reich economy community losing The path to success used to be up and through an organization. Now the path to success is increasingly through self-promotion. Robert Reich path You can't create a political movement out of pabulum. Robert Reich political-movements movement political Look, any cut in greenhouse gases is going to be expensive for American consumers, who are in no mood to bear additional costs. Robert Reich cutting energy looks There will always be a business cycle, and white-collar workers will get hit in the next recession like they always do in recessions. Robert Reich political white philosophy There is a crisis of public morality. Instead of policing bedrooms, we ought to be doing a better job policing boardrooms. Robert Reich bedroom morality jobs Radical conservatives want to police bedrooms. Robert Reich bedroom police want
