A Failure of Nerve Quotes

“As long as leaders—parents, healers, managers—base their confidence on how much data they have acquired, they are doomed to feeling inadequate, forever.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“Leaders become indecisive because, tyrannized by sensibilities, they function to soothe rather than challenge and to seek peace rather than progress.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“The ultimate irony of societal regression, however, is that eventually it co-opts the very institutions that train and support the leaders who could pull a society out of its devolution. It does this by concentrating their focus on data and technique rather than on emotional process and the leader’s own self.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“When a society (or any institution) is in a state of emotional regression, it will put its technological advances to the service of its regression, so that the more it advances on one level the more it regresses on another.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“This chapter will explore the third “equator,” or emotional barrier, that has to be crossed before leadership in America can be free to venture in “harm’s way.” That barrier is the association of self with autocracy and narcissism rather than with integrity and individuality.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“But evidentially, as with Columbus and his fellow navigators, life decided right then and there that mistakes were a small price to pay for the rewards that novelty could bring.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“Rather, I mean someone who has clarity about his or her own life goals and, therefore, someone who is less likely to become lost in the anxious emotional processes swirling about. I mean someone who can be separate while still remaining connected and, therefore, can maintain a modifying, non-anxious, and sometimes challenging presence. I mean someone who can manage his or her own reactivity in response to the automatic reactivity of others and, therefore, be able to take stands at the risk of displeasing. It is not as though some leaders can do this and some cannot. No one does this easily, and most leaders, I have learned, can improve their capacity.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“Eventually I came to see that this “resistance,” as it is usually called, is more than a reaction to novelty; it is part and parcel of the systemic process of leadership. Sabotage is not merely something to be avoided or wished away; instead, it comes with the territory of leading, whether the “territory” is a family or an organization. And a leader’s capacity to recognize sabotage for what it is—that is, a systemic phenomenon connected to the shifting balances in the emotional processes of a relationship system and not to the institution’s specific issues, makeup, or goals—is the key to the kingdom. My”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“I was continually bewildered by the fact that the same values that motivated people to do good work in society often did not seem to operate in their closest personal relationships.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“One can only be consistent when one is focused on oneself, not on the random perturbations of the un-self-regulating other. The former is what leadership is about; the latter allows followers to set the agendas. That is why such parents, no matter what techniques they are taught, from being “available” and “understanding” to “tough love,” almost always seem to be worn down by the repetitiveness of the child’s unregulated behavior or their own treadmill efforts to modify their child’s responses.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“My thesis here is that the climate of contemporary America has become so chronically anxious that our society has gone into an emotional regression that is toxic to well-defined leadership. This regression, despite the plethora of self-help literature and the many well-intentioned human rights movements, is characterized principally by a devaluing and denigration of the well-differentiated self. It has lowered people’s pain thresholds, with the result that comfort is valued over the rewards of facing challenge, symptoms come in fads, and cures go in and out of style like clothing fashions. Perhaps most important, however, is this: in contrast to the Renaissance spirit of adventure that was excited by encounter with novelty, American civilization’s emotional regression has perverted the élan of risk-taking discovery and pioneering that originally led to the foundations of our nation. As a result, its fundamental character has instead been shaped into an illusive and often compulsive search for safety and certainty. This is occurring equally in parenting, medicine, and management. The anxiety is so deep within the emotional processes of our nation that it is almost as though a neurosis has become nationalized.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“For example, having been in the rare position of working in the fields of both healing and management, I could not help but notice that the batting average in the war on cancer and the batting average in the struggle to heal chronically troubled institutions are remarkably similar, with cancer perhaps a little ahead. I have been struck by how families, corporations, and other kinds of institutions are constantly trying to cure their own chronic ills through amputations, “strong medicine,” transfusions, and other forms of surgery only to find that, even when successful for the moment, the excised tumor returns several years later in “cells” that never knew the “cells” that left. “New blood” rarely thwarts malignant processes, anywhere. Indeed, with both cancer and institutions, malignant cells that appear to be dead can often revive if they receive new nourishment. Or, to put the problem another way, when we say something has gone into remission, where do we think it has gone?”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“Sabotage is not merely something to be avoided or wished away; instead, it comes with the territory of leading, whether the “territory” is a family or an organization”
― Edwin H Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“reconnected. Similarly, there seemed to be three universal laws regarding the children of all families that transcended their cultural and sociological characteristics. ​​The children who work through the natural problems of maturing with the least amount of emotional or physical residue are those whose parents have made them least important to their own salvation. (Throughout this work, maturity will be defined as the willingness to take responsibility for one’s own emotional being and destiny.) ​​Children rarely succeed in rising above the maturity level of their parents, and this principle applies to all mentoring, healing, or administrative relationships. ​​Parents cannot produce change in a troubling child, no matter how caring, savvy, or intelligent they may be, until they become completely and totally fed up with their child’s behavior.”
― Edwin H Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“Today the issues most vulnerable to becoming displacements are, first of all, anything related to safety: product safety, traffic safety, bicycle safety, motorboat safety, jet-ski safety, workplace safety, nutritional safety, nuclear power station safety, toxic waste safety, and so on and so on. This focus on safety has become so omnipresent in our chronically anxious civilization that there is real danger we will come to believe that safety is the most important value in life. It is certainly important as a modifier of other initiatives, but if a society is to evolve, or if leaders are to arise, then safety can never be allowed to become more important than adventure. We are on our way to becoming a nation of “skimmers,” living off the risks of previous generations and constantly taking from the top without adding significantly to its essence. Everything we enjoy as part of our advanced civilization, including the discovery, exploration, and development of our country, came about because previous generations made adventure more important than safety.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“Similarly, the understanding that one can get more change in a family or organization by working with the motivated members (the strengths) in the system than by focusing on the symptomatic or recalcitrant members totally obliterates the search for answers to the question of how to motivate the unmotivated.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“A leader must separate his or her own emotional being from that of his or her followers while still remaining connected. Vision is basically an emotional rather than a cerebral phenomenon, depending more on a leader’s capacity to deal with anxiety than his or her professional training or degree. A leader needs the capacity not only to accept the solitariness that comes with the territory, but also to come to love it. These criteria are based on the recognition that “no good deed goes unpunished”; chronic criticism is, if anything, often a sign that the leader is functioning better! Vision is not enough.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“frequently, the leaders of a church would come to me seeking techniques for dealing with a member of the staff or a member of the congregation who was acting obstreperously, who was ornery, and who intimidated everyone with his gruffness. I might say to them, “This is not a matter of technique; it’s a matter of taking a stand, telling this person he has to shape up or he cannot continue to remain a member of the community.” And the church leaders would respond, “But that’s not the Christian thing to do.” (Synagogue leaders also tolerate abusers for the same reason.)”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“Daniel Kahneman astutely observed, “No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.”
― Edwin H Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“In any type of institution whatsoever, when a self-directed, imaginative, energetic, or creative member is being consistently frustrated and sabotaged rather than encouraged and supported, what will turn out to be true one hundred percent of the time, regardless of whether the disrupters are supervisors, subordinates, or peers, is that the person at the very top of that institution is a peace-monger.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“Sabotage is not merely something to be avoided or wished away; instead, it comes with the territory of leading, whether the “territory” is a family or an organization. And a leader’s capacity to recognize sabotage for what it is—that is, a systemic phenomenon connected to the shifting balances in the emotional processes of a relationship system and not to the institution’s specific issues, makeup, or goals—is the key to the kingdom.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“I have been struck by how families, corporations, and other kinds of institutions are constantly trying to cure their own chronic ills through amputations, “strong medicine,” transfusions, and other forms of surgery, only to find that, even when successful for the moment, the excised tumor returns several years later in “cells” that never knew the “cells” that left.”
― Edwin H. Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“when one individual in a marriage stands up to another, while the other will not like it at first, he or she generally will begin to find the person more attractive.”
― Edwin H Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“the major relational problem for our species is not getting together; protoplasm loves to join. The problem is preserving self in a close relationship. No human on planet Earth does that well.”
― Edwin H Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“those who lack self-definition, whether they are children, marriage partners, employees, clients, therapists, or supervisors, will always perceive those who are well-defined to be “headstrong.”
― Edwin H Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“There are always three factors involved in survival, no matter how toxic the environment. One is the physical reality; the second is dumb luck; and the third is the response of the organism, which can often modify the influence of the first two. The relationship of these three factors can be imagined as dials on an amplifier, with survival depending on the overall mix.”
― Edwin H Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“If lack of self-regulation is the essential characteristic of organisms that are destructive, it is the presence of self-regulatory capacity that is critical to the health, survival, and evolution of an organism or an organization.”
― Edwin H Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“the key to survival is the ability of the “host” to recognize and limit the invasiveness of its viral or malignant components.”
― Edwin H Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix

“any community or family discussion, those who are the first to introduce concern for empathy feel powerless, and are trying to use the togetherness force of a regressed society to get those whom they perceive to have power to adapt to them.”
― Edwin H Friedman, A Failure of Nerve: Leadership in the Age of the Quick Fix