Jason Fried Quotes

With problems and issues groups face- there is an enormous disconnect between understanding and doing.

Not being a genius, I believe in collaboration, and my background as a problem solver means I've never been afraid to work with people cleverer than myself.

I'm not a good collaborator in general.

I'm communicating with the directors of the Soviet companies, and I see that it is wrong, but when I go to the official discussions, they discuss we should change the color of the walls.

Too many problem-solving sessions become battlegrounds where decisions are made based on power rather than intelligence.

Whenever we had a serious question to decide, we had a conference with the groups involved.

Are your people uncomfortable during meetings and tired at the end? If not, they're probably not mixing it up enough and getting to the bottom of important issues.

Diverse groups do best at complex problems and innovation when the facts aren't clear: each individual's perspective allows him or her to tackle challenges differently and, when stuck, rely on others' differing points of views to progress.

If you are trying to get people to work on a problem together, it's best if they don't know where you, as the supervisor/manager, stand on the question.

One of the things I learned very early on was that if you cast the show correctly, and if you've created the right energy in the room, the solution is also in the room. The solution doesn't necessarily come from someone, but if everybody is working in a very steadfast and rigorous way, then everything you're looking for is in the room.

Collaborative decision-making is very poor in crises.

That's important to remember: it's not just a collection of great individuals but a group of people who enjoy playing in the sandbox, thoroughly enjoying collaborative problem solving.

Meet regularly with your business team and brainstorm. Intricate business problems are mostly resolved at brainstorming sessions.

Psychologists usually offer three explanations for the failure of group brainstorming. The first is social loafing: in a group, some individuals tend to sit back and let others do the work. The second is production blocking: only one person can talk or produce an idea at once, while the other group members are forced to sit passively. And the third is evaluation apprehension, meaning the fear of looking stupid in front of one's peers.

Most innovation comes from people working together, collaborating in teams.

I think it's a fallacy that only people in elected office can come up with solutions that solve our problems. I just think maybe there's a different paradigm.

If you have a problem and you can't find a solution, you meet again tomorrow and you keep talking until you find a solution. You can disagree with behavior or a particular position, but you do not resort to calling an opponent worthless.

But sure there is need of other remedies than dreaming, a weak contention of art against nature.

I think it is astounding that people could argue for "you just must trust someone else to fix it" instead of "you could fix it yourself, or hire someone to fix it." There is a contractor base out there that can solve these problems as well as or better than the major vendors could. But I think the major vendors are still having more luck at getting the ear of the press.

Every problem that the country faces is being solved in some community by some group or some individual. The question is how to get connected so that the whole nation can solve problems. A volunteer is a person who can see what others cannot see; who can feel what most do not feel. Often, such gifted persons do not think of themselves as volunteers, but as citizens - citizens in the fullest sense; partners in civilization.

The argument culture urges us to approach the world - and the people in it - in an adversarial frame of mind. It rests on the assumption that opposition is the best way to get anything done: The best way to discuss an idea is to set up a debate; the best way to cover news is to find spokespeople who express the most extreme, polarized views and present them as 'both sides'; the best way to settle disputes is litigation that pits one party against the other; the best way to begin an essay is to attack someone; and the best way to show you're really thinking is to criticize.

Reaching consensus in a group is often confused with finding the right answer.

Study the situation thoroughly, go over in your imagination the various courses of action possible to you and the consequences which can and may follow from each course. Pick out the course which gives the most promise and go ahead.

There are definitely aspects of that kind of stuff. The whole team [of Legends of Tommorow] gets thrown together. They don't really know each other like that. They haven't worked together before.

I came from an environment where if you see a snake, you kill it. At General motors, if you see a snake, the first thing you do is to hire a consultant on snakes.