Rebel Ideas Quotes

“If we are intent upon answering our most serious questions, from climate change to poverty, and curing diseases to designing new products, we need to work with people who think differently, not just accurately.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“that collective intelligence emerges not just from the knowledge of individuals, but also from the differences between them.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“John Cleese? ‘Everybody has theories,’ he said. ‘The dangerous people are those who are not aware of their own theories. That is, the theories on which they operate are largely unconscious.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“perspective blindness’. This refers to the fact that we are oblivious to our own blind spots. We perceive and interpret the world through frames of reference but we do not see the frames of reference themselves. This, in turn, means that we tend to underestimate the extent to which we can learn from people with different points of view.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“When an average is being used well, it’s harnessing the insights from multiple people. When it’s used badly, it’s imposing a solution for multiple people.’9”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“There is a time and place for prestige, and a time and place for dominance. Wise leaders are able to pivot back and forth between the two. When executing a plan, dominance can be crucial. But when deciding on a new strategy, or predicting the future, or finding new innovations, you need to hear diverse perspectives. This is where dominance can be disastrous.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“Groups have an inbuilt tendency to become clone-like.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“Often, it is looking at what went wrong that can provide the most vivid pointers about how to get things right.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“The most significant trend in human creativity is the shift from individuals to teams, and the gap between teams and individuals is increasing with time’, Uzzi writes.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“If we are intent upon answering our most serious questions, from climate change to poverty, and curing diseases to designing new products, we need to work with people who think differently, not just accurately. And this requires us to take a step back and view performance from a fundamentally different vantage point. Consider an irony in the way we traditionally think about success. If you look at science or, indeed, popular literature, the focus is on individuals. How can we improve the knowledge or perceptiveness of ourselves or our colleagues? Fine books such as Peak by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool, Sources of Power by Gary Klein and Mindset by Carol Dweck have become bestsellers. All examine, in their different ways, how we can improve individual abilities through time.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“Justice Antonin Scalia for the Supreme Court. You can either choose diversity, he contended, or you can choose to be ‘super-duper’. If a diverse workforce, student population, or whatever, emerges organically through the pursuit of excellence, that is one thing. But to privilege diversity above excellence is different.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“Groups have an inbuilt tendency to become clone”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“Above all, we will see why teams of rebels beat teams of clones.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“The code name for the plot among Al Qaeda’s inner circle was the Big Wedding. In the ideology of suicide bombers, the day of a martyr’s death is also his wedding day where he will be greeted by virgins at the gates of heaven. This was their prize, their inspiration.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“The homogeneity at the CIA created a vast collective blind spot.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“To Muslims, however, poetry has a different meaning. It is holy.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“The potency of his messages was visible, then, but only to those looking with the right lens. Bin Laden’s messages were reaching far and wide,”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“As for the cave, this had even deeper symbolism. As almost any Muslim knows, Mohammad sought refuge in a cave after escaping his persecutors in Mecca. This was a period known as the Hejira. The cave was guarded by a series of divine interventions, including an acacia tree that sprouted to conceal the entrance, and a miraculous spider’s web and dove’s egg that made it seemed unoccupied. Muslims know, too, that Mohammad’s vision of the Koran occurred in a mountain cave.26”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“Bin Laden orchestrated his entire operation by ‘calling up images that were deeply meaningful to many Muslims but practically invisible to those who were unfamiliar with the faith’.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“Now, consider how someone more familiar with Islam would have perceived the very same images. Bin Laden wore simple cloth not because he was primitive in terms of intellect or technology, but because he modelled himself on the Prophet. He fasted on the days the Prophet fasted. His poses and postures, which seemed so backward to a Western audience, were those that Islamic tradition ascribes to the most holy of its prophets. The very images that desensitised the CIA to the dangers of bin Laden were those that magnified his potency in the Arab world.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“Osama bin Laden made his declaration of war on the United States from a cave in Tora Bora in Afghanistan on 23 August 1996.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“They were mirroring each other’s perspectives. And although they were more likely to be wrong, they were far more confident about being right. They were not challenged on their blind spots, so didn’t get a chance to see them. They were not exposed to other perspectives,”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“When you are surrounded by similar people, you are not just likely to share each other’s blind spots, but to reinforce them. This is sometimes called ‘mirroring’.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“perspective blindness’. This refers to the fact that we are oblivious to our own blind spots. We perceive and interpret the world through frames of reference but we do not see the frames of reference themselves.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking

“Groups that contain diverse views have a huge, often decisive, advantage.”
― Matthew Syed, Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking