In part because individual judgement is not accurate enough or consistent enough, cognitive diversity is essential to good decision making. James Surowiecki More Quotes by James Surowiecki More Quotes From James Surowiecki Defense contractors are able to reap tremendous profits while rarely confronting the risks for which those profits are supposed to be the reward. James Surowiecki rewardsriskdefense Corporations hope that the right concept will turn things around overnight. This is what you might call the crash-diet approach: starve yourself for a few days and you'll be thin for life. James Surowiecki corporationscrashmight Businesses that have gone through an episode of hyperinflation become understandably alert to the threat of it: at the first hint of inflation, they're likely to increase prices, since they've learned that if they don't, and inflation hits, their businesses will be wrecked. James Surowiecki hintsgonefirsts As technology improves, on-screen avatars look more and more like real people. When they start looking too real, though, we pull away. These almost-humans aren't quite right; they look creepy, like zombies. James Surowiecki technologyrealpeople By the time of the '90s boom, CEOs had become superheroes, accorded celebrity treatment and followed with a kind of slavish scrutiny that Alfred P. Sloan could never have imagined. James Surowiecki superherotreatmentkind All things being equal, letting people make decisions for themselves will produce smarter outcomes, collectively, than relying on government planners. James Surowiecki governmentdecisionpeople Campaigns fail if they waste resources courting voters who are unpersuadable or already persuaded. Their most urgent task is to find and persuade the few voters who are genuinely undecided and the larger number who are favorably disposed but need a push to actually vote. James Surowiecki tasksnumbersneeds Since the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland wants to remain a part of Great Britain, and since Ireland itself has shown little interest in reunification, the IRA's prospects for success through political channels have always been limited. James Surowiecki iramajoritypolitical We assume that good-looking people are smarter and more effective than they really are, and that homely people are the reverse. James Surowiecki looking-goodassumingpeople In the auto industry, there's one thing you can always count on: if a new environmental or safety rule is proposed, executives will prophesy disaster. James Surowiecki environmentaldisastersafety Now, modern economies have a very effective mechanism for deciding if salaries are really too high: it's called the free market. That's how most people's salaries are set, after all, including those of major-league baseball players and European soccer players. James Surowiecki playerbaseballsoccer Intellectual-property rules are clearly necessary to spur innovation: if every invention could be stolen, or every new drug immediately copied, few people would invest in innovation. But too much protection can strangle competition and can limit what economists call 'incremental innovation' - innovations that build, in some way, on others. James Surowiecki competitiondrugpeople Nike used to be known as Blue Ribbon Sports. What's now Sara Lee used to be Consolidated Foods. And Exxon was once Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. These were name changes that worked. But for all the ones that do, there are 10 or 20 that don't. James Surowiecki nikebluesports In the days when corporate downsizing was all the rage, Wall Street took a lot of flak for judging companies too harshly and setting the bar for corporate performance so high that executives felt their only option was to slash payrolls. James Surowiecki barswalljudging Medical tourism can be considered a kind of import: instead of the product coming to the consumer, as it does with cars or sneakers, the consumer is going to the product. James Surowiecki tourismsneakerscar Markets work best when there's lots of information available and a historical track record to go on; they excel at predicting things like horse races, election outcomes, and box-office results. But they're bad at predicting things like who will be the next Supreme Court nominee, as that depends on the whim of the president. James Surowiecki horsetrackrace In practice, downsizing is too often about cutting your work force while keeping your business the same, and doing so not by investments in productivity-enhancing technology, but by making people pull 80-hour weeks and bringing in temps to fill the gap. James Surowiecki cuttingtechnologypractice In terms of productivity - that is, how much a worker produces in an hour - there's little difference between the U.S., France, and Germany. But since more people work in America, and since they work so many more hours, Americans create more wealth. James Surowiecki differencesamericapeople There are certainly valid reasons for taking a company private, and it's also possible that C.E.O.s perform better when monitored by a small number of owners in a private company rather than by the dispersed and often uninterested shareholders of a public corporation. James Surowiecki small-numberscorporationsreason When Americans think of college these days, the first word that often comes to mind is 'debt.' And from 'debt' it's just a short hop to other unpleasant words, like 'payola,' 'kickback,' and 'bribery.' James Surowiecki collegemindthinking
