Redesigning Leadership Quotes

“I’ve come to realize, however, that while technology may make it more convenient to communicate, it doesn’t improve our ability to get a point across.”
― John Maeda, Redesigning Leadership

“Work is easier when its just work; it’s much harder when you actually care.”
― John Maeda, Redesigning Leadership

“Being prepared isn’t a matter of how much you practice. It’s about knowing that even if you fail, you won’t give up.”
― John Maeda, Redesigning Leadership

“Sophistication is the craft of subtlety that goes noticed.”
― John Maeda, Redesigning Leadership

“Every time I try to diagram some organizational phenomena or strategy, the resulting pretty picture generally fails to create any lasting understanding. Much like movies, diagrams are more meaningful when you are there to witness the “making-of” experience or any other “live” means of presentation. We love to be there at the very moment of conception of an idea, but when we’re not, we’re less likely to be excited by the idea (because it doesn’t feel like our own). There is something to be said for sitting right there and watching the drawing unfold — it can make the spoken narrative clearer.

At the very end of an intense diagramming session that has revealed every possible magnificent detail, there is always the moment of excitement and reckoning that warrants, “Wait, wait… let me take a photo of this with my mobile phone.” But when you show it to someone else a week or two later, it no longer makes any sense. Watching something being made is a powerful way to understand a concept; trying to decode just the final result, no matter how simple and visually elegant, demands an explanation of how it came to be.”
― John Maeda, Redesigning Leadership

“respect is constantly earned, and shouldn’t be assumed because of your position.”
― John Maeda, Redesigning Leadership