Tony Hsieh Quotes

Most organizations do not value imagination, do not encourage it, do not reward it. In many cases, they don't even think about it. But if you're not thinking about imagination, I guarantee you're not going to have meaningful innovation.

Don't equate activity with efficiency. You are paying your key people to see the big picture. Don't let them get bogged down in a lot of meaningless meetings and paper shuffling. Announce a Friday afternoon off once in a while. Cancel a Monday morning meeting or two. Tell the cast of characters you'd like them to spend the amount of time normally spent preparing for attending the meeting at their desks, simply thinking about an original idea.

Creativity and business acumen don't always go hand in hand.

It really hasn't been demonstrated at any level by any major corporation that it can nurture what is euphemistically called creativity.

One of the challenges of innovation is figuring out how to wipe your mind clean about what you should be doing at any given moment, and not having a religious attachment to what's gotten you there thus far.

Australians have a free spirit and an ability to think outside the box, and that is why I like Australia so much.

Answers are not enough, students should be encouraged to ask questions and explore alternatives to the norm. Entrepreneurship and invention are the backbone of the new economy, yet I doubt they get more than a nod in economics courses.

Our biggest goal is to continue to force ourselves to always start our creative work on a white page and not take advantage of past successes and challenging ourselves.

Innovation is all about people. Innovation thrives when the population is diverse, accepting and willing to cooperate.

Negativity is the enemy of creativity.

I'm one of those actors who is going to come in with 2,500 ideas. You can shoot down 2,499, but one of them you're going to like.

Creativity seldom thrives in an atmosphere of great discipline or scrutiny. That's one reason we tend not to want our leaders to get too creative.

The heart of the entrepreneur can beat freely in anyone.

If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original.

I've never taken any issue off the table for lack of suitability. Only for lack of imagination.

What makes the food that we do at Alinea so interesting on the outside is that we really don't let ourselves say no to an idea.

Innovation can only occur where you can breathe free.

You have to imagine it possible before you can see something. You can have the evidence right in front of you, but if you can't imagine something that has never existed before, it's impossible.

I'm always up for collaborating with people who are slightly leftfield.

The most important thing we do to encourage innovation is give people the freedom to fail. And I think you can articulate that and establish that as a value in a lot of different ways. I don't want to say celebrate the failures, but in a lot of respects, it's sort of that.

Innovation actually demands freedom and freedom demands innovation.

Great ideas come from everywhere if you just listen and look for them. You never know who's going to have a great idea.

I just wanted to make something in the world and worry about the rest of it later and not get too caught up in rules.

Innovators have to be open. They have to be able to imagine things that others cannot and be willing to challenge their own preconceptions. They also need to be conscientious. An innovator who has brilliant ideas but lacks the discipline and persistence to carry them out is merely a dreamer ... But crucially, innovators need to be disagreeable ... They are people willing to take social risks-to do things that others might disapprove of.