Dee Hock Quotes

“Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple stupid behavior.”

“Making good judgments when one has complete data, facts, and knowledge is not leadership – it's bookkeeping.”

“An organization, no matter how well designed, is only as good as the people who live and work in it.”

“Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience.”

“The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get old ones out. Every mind is a building filled with archaic furniture. Clean out a corner of your mind and creativity will instantly fill it.”

“If you look to lead, invest at least 40% of your time managing yourself – your ethics, character, principles, purpose, motivation, and conduct. Invest at least 30% managing those with authority over you, and 15% managing your peers.”

“You learn nothing from your successes except to think too much of yourself. It is from failure that all growth comes, provided you can recognize it, admit it, learn from it, rise above it, and then try again.”

“The essence of community, its heart and soul, is the non-monetary exchange of value; things we do and share because we care for others, and for the good of the place.”

“Community is composed of that which we don't attempt to measure, for which we keep no record and ask no recompense. Most are things we cannot measure no matter how hard we try.”

“Make a careful list of all things done to you that you abhorred. Don't do them to others, ever. Make another list of things done for you that you loved. Do them for others, always.”

“We never fully understand what we have been told until we experience it. Learning not embedded in experience is forever crippled. Unfortunately, our present society is schooled, not educated.”

“It's the organizational concepts and ideas that were essential. I merely came to symbolize them. Such organizations should be management-proof.”

“If anything in the world were possible, if there were no constraints whatever, what would be the nature of an ideal organization to create the world's premier system for the exchange of value?”

“Never hire or promote in your own image. It is foolish to replicate your strength. It is idiotic to replicate your weakness. It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective, ability, and judgment are radically different from yours.”

“We are at that very point in time when a 400-year-old age is dying and another is struggling to be born — a shifting of culture, science, society, and institutions enormously greater than the world has ever experienced.”

“We are built with an almost infinite capacity to believe things because the beliefs are advantageous for us to hold, rather than because they are even remotely related to the truth.”

“Unless new cultures are able to consciously visualize, create and implement new forms of governance, the old forms of corporate and political governance will assert themselves, penetrate the new culture and turn it to the same old ends.”

“The list of visionaries who have the ability to look beyond the horizon and imagine a world that doesn't yet exist is extremely short. Shorter still is the list of those who can weave a concept into reality like Dee did with Visa.”

“Life is not about control. It's not about getting. It's not about having. It's not about knowing. It's not even about being. It is a magnificent, mysterious odyssey to be experienced.”