(1) The term explicate the quote means tell the whole truth. Make it plain to the reader and don’t leave anything out; but also don’t leave anything implied.
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(1) “Caroline drew in a breath to expostulate, then let it out again slowly as the necessity for realism overtook her.”
—Perry, Anne. 1993. Farriers’ Lane. New York: Fawcett Crest.
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(1) “There is no man, however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived in a way the consciousness of which is so unpleasant to him in later life that he would gladly, if he could, expunge it from his memory.”
—Marcel Proust, French novelist, critic, and essayist (1871–1922)
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(1) It was clear the outside consultant did not understand our market because I had to expurgate nearly the entire marketing plan he submitted.
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(1) “Many are always praising the by-gone time, for it is natural that the old should extol the days of their youth; the weak, the time of their strength; the sick, the season of their vigor; and the disappointed, the spring-tide of their hopes.”
—George Caleb Bingham, American realist artist (1811–1879)
(1) “That sign of old age, extolling the past at the expense of the present.”
—Sydney Smith, English clergyman, essayist (1771–1845)
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(1) “My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.”
—Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court justice
Collocates to: can, data, findings, from, motion, results, track
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(1) “Sometimes accidents happen in life from which we have need of a little madness to extricate ourselves successfully.”
—François de la Rochefoucauld, French classical author (1613–1680)
(1) “You know from past experiences that whenever you have been driven to the wall, or thought you were, you have extricated yourself in a way which you never would have dreamed possible had you not been put to the test. The trouble is that in your everyday life you don’t go deep enough to tap the divine mind within you.”
—Orson Welles, American motion-picture actor, director, producer, and writer (1915–1985)
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(1) “Whatever enlarges hope will also exalt courage.”
—Samuel Johnson, English poet, critic, and writer (1709–1784)
(1) “Affirmation of life is the spiritual act by which man ceases to live unreflectively and begins to devote himself to his life with reverence in order to raise it to its true value. To affirm life is to deepen, to make more inward, and to exalt the will.”
—Albert Schweitzer, German missionary, theologian, 1952 Nobel Peace Prize recipient (1875–1965)
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(1) “David Maxwell, like Darwin Smith and Colman Mockler, exemplified a key trait of Level 5 leaders: ambition first and foremost for the company and concern for its success rather than for one’s own riches and personal renown.”
—Collins, Jim. 2001. Good to Great. New York: Harper Collins, 25.
(2) make or conduct an experiment
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(1) Leaders are not afraid to experiment, take risks, and learn from their mistakes.
(2) continue something for a time longer than normal; go on; run on; stretch longer than expected
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(2) “Christopher E. Kubasik, 51, Lockheed’s president and chief operating officer, has been named to succeed Robert J. Stevens, 60, as chief executive. Kubasik is part of a new crop of contracting executives who have been groomed within their companies and are being tasked with overseeing a transition that has required layoffs, buyouts and corporate restructuring. ‘When I look at future challenges, I recognize they will certainly extend beyond my mandatory retirement age,’ Stevens told reporters Thursday morning.”
—Censer, Marjorie. 2012. Lockheed Latest Contractor to Announce New Leadership. Washington Post, April 27.
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(1) The ability to facilitate and manage meetings are important leadership skills.
(1) “The essential job of government is to facilitate, not frustrate, job development.”
—Andrew Cuomo, American, 56th and current governor of New York (1957–)
(1) “Every human being must find his own way to cope with severe loss, and the only job of a true friend is to facilitate whatever method he chooses.”
—Calab Carr, American novelist and military historian (1955–)
(1) “Boardroom discussions often center on just two questions: How can we sustain innovation? And do we have a plan for developing future leaders who can facilitate this goal?”
—Cohn, Jeffery, Jon Katzenbach, and Gus Vlak. 2008. Finding and Grooming Breakthrough Innovators. Harvard Business Review (December): 64.
(1) “To be a leader, one has to make a difference and facilitate positive change.”
—DuBrin, Andrew. 1998. Leadership Research Findings, Practice, and Skills. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2.
Collocates to: communications, development, design, learning, order, process
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(1) “At company headquarters, Clint Smith co-founder and CEO of Emma e-mail Marketing, fashioned an open floor plan expressly to inspire a spirit of collaboration among the more than 100 employees.”
—Hann, Christopher. 2012. The Masters. Entrepreneur (March): 56.
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(1) In the 3rd century the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu...talked of fighting on ‘death ground,’ a place where an army is backed up against some geographical feature with no escape route. Without a way to retreat, Sun Tzu argued, an army fights with far greater spirit it would have on open terrain because death is viscerally present. Sun Tzu advocated deliberately stationing soldiers on death ground to give them the desperate edge that makes men fight harder. That is what Cortés did in Mexico. He burned his ships and his men knew the only way they could survive was to fight on death ground.
(1) “When it comes to the carbon pricing agenda, PM Gillard and her Labor Government are fighting on death ground—the terrain that the military strategist Sun Tzu described more than 2,000 years ago in The Art of War.”
—Eubank. 2011. Carbon Price Fight Price on Death Ground. ABCnews.net, March 17.
—Unknown
(1) Be prepared to finesse what we can do; we need to make some hard decisions.
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(1) An experienced web developer’s first move is to get the client’s signature on a comprehensive Web site development contract before starting any project.
(1) “The advantages to those who are first movers are three: (1) Technological leadership, (2) preemption of assets and capital, and (3) increase in buyer switching costs.”
—Liberman, Marvin, and David Montgomery. 1987. First-Mover Advantages, Research Paper 969, Stanford Business School, October.
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(1) “They flaunt their conjugal felicity in one’s face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins.”
—Oscar Wilde, Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, and critic (1854–1900)
(1) “Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his spoils, but cannot wear them plausibly.”
—Jean Cocteau, French poet, novelist, and actor (1889–1963)
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(1) I went to the convention and exhibit to flog the software.
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(1) “Many people flounder about in life because they do not have a purpose, an objective toward which to work.”
—George Halas, American football coach (1895–1983)
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(1) To flout regulations, rules, and authority may make you a hero albeit a lonely one.
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(1) “In product development, a popular tool is the quick-and-dirty prototype. Because simple prototypes make the abstract concrete, they can guide innovators’ conversations and focus their attention, helping them to move forward.”
—Leonardi, Paul. 2011. Early Prototypes Can Hurt a Team’s Creativity, Innovations. Harvard Business Review (December): 28.
(1) “Examples of business leaders who rise to the heights of corporate power only to be brought down by their egos include Dennis Kozlowski, former CEO of TYCO, and Carly Fiorina former head of Hewlett-Packard. As leaders of corporate empires they focused on what flattered instead of what mattered.”
—Forbes, Steve, and John Prevas. 2009. Power Ambition Glory. New York: Crown Business Press, 7.
(1) “Companies that want to make better use of the data they gather should focus on two things: training workers to increase their data literacy and efficiently incorporate information into decision making, and giving those workers the right tools.”
—Shah, Shvetank, Andrew Horne, and Jamie Capella. 2012. Good Data Won’t Guarantee Good Decisions, Idea Watch. Harvard Business Review (April): 24.
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Metaphor—“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus” (Alexander Graham Bell, American inventor and educator, 1847–1922).
Collocates to: attention, groups, issues, main, primary, on
(2) sign up as one who receives tweet digital messages
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(1) “You cannot be a leader, and ask other people to follow you, unless you know how to follow, too.”
—Sam Rayburn, American politician and lawyer (1882–1961)
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(1) “Follow then the shining ones, the wise, the awakened, the loving, for they know how to work and forbear.”
—Buddha, a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded
(1) “The wise man... if he would live at peace with others, he will bear and forbear.”
—Samuel Smiles, Scottish author (1812–1904)
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(1) “The ability to forecast sales with more accuracy optimizes the firm’s operational plans.”
—Hilenrath, Jon. 2012. Fed’s Computer Models Pose Problems, The Outlook. Wall Street Journal, December, 31.
(2) beat; make out of components
(3) move ahead or act with sudden increase in motion or speed
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(1) “People are more inclined to be drawn in if their leader has a compelling vision. Great leaders help people get in touch with their own aspirations and then will help them forge those aspirations into a personal vision.”
—John Kotter, former professor at the Harvard Business School, an acclaimed author
(1) “The President’s offer is very much in keeping with history of insisting that negotiation consists of the other side giving him everything he wants. That approach has given him the reputation as the modern president least able to forge a consensus.”
—Strassel, Kimberley. 2012. This Unserious White House, Opinion. Wall Street Journal, November 30.
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Metaphor—“We forge the chains we wear in life” (Charles Dickens, English writer and social critic, 1812–1870).
• Vivid imagery—“Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles” (Patrick Henry, American lawyer, patriot, and orator, symbol of the American struggle for liberty, 1736–1799).
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(1) “To forego even ambition when the end is gained—who can say this is not greatness?”
—William Makepeace Thackeray, English author and novelist (1811–1863)
(1) “Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.”
—Benjamin Disraeli, British prime minister and novelist (1804–1881)
(1) “The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.”
—Bertrand Russell, English logician and philosopher (1872–1970)
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(1) It is critical to formulate a clear mission statement.
—Scottish proverb
(1) “There is not a more repulsive spectacle than on old man who will not forsake the world, which has already forsaken him.”
—T. S. Eliot, American-born English editor, playwright, poet, and critic (1888–1965)
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Vivid imagery—“Did my heart love till now? Forswear it, sight, For I never saw true beauty till this night” (William Shakespeare, English poet and playwright, 1564–1516).
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(1) “William Smith founded Euclid Elements...His awareness of his own strengths and weaknesses led him to hire far more experienced managers and engineers... Their hiring, in turn, fostered a culture at Euclid in which Smith does not hesitate to rely on those around him.”
—Hann, Christopher. 2012. The Masters. Entrepreneur (March): 58.
(1) “Volunteer activities can foster enormous leadership skills. The nonprofessional volunteer world is a laboratory for self-realization.”
—Mae West, American actress (1892–1980)
(1) “It is not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work—work with us, not over us; stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it.”
—Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the United States (1911–2004)
(1) “Moreover, laudable and beguiling though professional standards and ethics may be, and however appealing professional status is, hanging the mantle ‘professional’ on business education fosters inappropriate analysis and misguided prescriptions.”
—Barker, Richard. 2012. No, Management Is Not a Profession, The Big Idea. Harvard Business Review (July/August): 54.
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(1) “Why did new business starts plunge during 2008–2012? To write it off as an effect of the recession overlooks key ingredients to fueling the next wave of start-ups.”
—Alkarim Nasser, managing partner, BNotions
(2) accomplish; carryout an order or request; bring to fruition; complete something started; execute; follow through; implement; make happen; obey; perform
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(1) “Employment in the manufacturing sector contracted for the first time in three years...however production surged, but order backlogs fell, a sign that businesses are fulfilling old orders rather than receiving new ones.”
—Neil Shah, Neil. 2012. Slow Hiring, Spending Hit Factories, U.S. News, Wall Street Journal, December 4.
(1) “We must make the choices that enable us to fulfill the deepest capacities of our real selves.”
—Thomas Merton, American and trappist monk (1915–1968)
(1) “Whenever I hear people talking about liberal ideas, I am always astounded that men should love to fool themselves with empty sounds. An idea should never be liberal; it must be vigorous, positive, and without loose ends so that it may fulfill its divine mission and be productive. The proper place for liberality is in the realm of the emotions.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German playwright, poet, novelist, and dramatist (1749–1832)
(1) Consumer products and services are purchased to fulfill certain basic human needs. Whether it is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs or the more contemporary Lawrence and Nohria Four Drives that Underline Human Motivation, marketers have to discover the proper need and fulfill them or there will be no long-term customer relationship.
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(1) “Fear has a lot of flavors and textures. There is a sharp, silver fear that runs like lightning through your arms and legs, galvanizes you into action, power, motion.”
—Jim Butcher, in Grave Peril
(1) “There are some men whom a staggering emotional shock, so far from making them mental invalids for life, seems, on the other hand, to awaken, to galvanize, to arouse into an almost incredible activity of soul.”
—William McFee, English writer (1881–1961)
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(1) “Work and live to serve others, to leave the world a little better than you found it and garner for yourself as much peace of mind as you can. This is happiness.”
—David Sarnoff, Russian-born American inventor (1891–1971)
(1) “Garner up pleasant thoughts in your mind, for pleasant thoughts make pleasant lives.”
—John Wilkins, English clergyman, natural philosopher, and author (1614–1672)
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(1) If this international merger doesn’t gel, the local folks will be left out in the cold.
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(1) “Tasks outside the core should only be undertaken if they generate excess revenue that can support the core.”
—Richard Romano, Looking Behind Community College Budgets for Future Policy Considerations. Community College Review, April 2012, Vol. 40 Issue 2, p. 165–189, 25p
(1) “Under the stewardship of Darwin Clark, Kimberly Clark generated cumulative stock returns 4.1 times the general market, beating its direct rival Scott Paper and Procter & Gamble and outperforming such venerable companies as Coca Cola, Hewlett-Packard, 3M and General Electric.”
—Collins, Jim. 2001. Good to Great. New York: Harper Collins, 18.
Collocates to: ability, electricity, energy, ideas, income, interest, jobs, power, revenue
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(1) Tim got himself crosswise with his supervisor over the work rules.
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(1) “The stable project management teams we grew up still work in many contexts...Situations that call for teaming are, by contrast, complex and uncertain, full of unexpected events that require rapid changes in course. No two teaming projects are alike, so people must get up to speed quickly on brand-new topics, again and again. Because solutions can come from anywhere, team members do too.”
—Edmondson, Amy, C. 2012. Teamwork on the Fly, Spotlight. Harvard Business Review (April): 74.
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(1) Supply-side economics in theory should help in ginning up markets.
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(1) A manager must find the correct balance between giving his or her people responsibility and authority to have a healthy, happy, and productive staff.
GO DOWN THE LINE
(1) all out; all in; compete with dead earnest; do whatever is necessary; give or take no quarter; go balls out; go for broke; go for the fences; go for gold; go down swinging; go for all the marbles; go full bore; go great guns; go the distance; go the limit; go toe to toe; go to the wall; full steam; make the maximum effort; valiant try
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(1) “Tom Enders, CEO of EADS said ‘I have mixed feelings about innovation’ as his company grappled with cracks inside the wings of newest plane in the skies, the A380 superjumbo.”
—Michaels, Daniel. 2013. Innovation Is Messy Business, Marketplace. Wall Street Journal, January 24.
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(1) “Responsibilities gravitate to the man who can shoulder them and the power to him who knows how.”
—Elbert Hubbard, American editor, publisher, and writer (1856–1915)
(1) “The excitement factor is a strong one with his top students, says Dr. Zurbuchen. The students tend to have an entrepreneurial spirit, he says, and gravitate toward the opportunities that may be risky in terms of job security, but give them the feeling that, ‘hey, we’re going to kick in some doors and have an impact,’ he says.”
—Spotts, Pete. 2011. SpaceX Launch: Private Industry Inspires New Generation of Rocketeers. Christian Science Monitor, May 22.
(2) escort; lead; pilot; route; surround; show; steer; supervise; usher
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(1) A true leader both guides and follows.
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Metaphor—“The only guide to man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor” (Winston Churchill, British orator, author, and prime minister, 1874–1965).
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(1) “Bay area water agencies seem to be winning their long battle to harangue customers into consuming less.”
—John Upton, American writer for New York Times
(1) “Ayn Rand’s popularity on the street is at odds with her standing in the academic world. Some critics have called her interminable, tone-deaf, blind to human reality, a writer who creates not dialogue but harangue.”
—John Timpane, American writer for Philadelphia Inquirer
(2) attach with a harness to something
(3) gather or put together resources to accomplish a goal or an objective
—Walter Wriston, American banker and former chairman and CEO of Citicorp (1919–2005)
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Repetition—“Normal fear protects us; abnormal fear paralyses us. Normal fear motivates us to improve our individual and collective welfare; abnormal fear constantly poisons and distorts our inner lives. Our problem is not to be rid of fear but, rather to harness and master it” (Martin Luther King, Jr., American Baptist minister and civil-rights leader, 1929–1968).
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(1) Political debates are used as opportunities for voters to learn the candidates’ views on issues but now the debate time seems to be spent seeing who can heckle and hector their opponent more.
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Vivid imagery—All Troy then moves to Priam’s court again
A solemn, silent, melancholy train;
Assembled there, from pious toil they rest,
And sadly shared the last sepulchral feast
Such honors Ilion to her hero paid,
And peaceful slept the might Hector’s shade
(Homer, Iliad, trans, Alexander Pope, bk xxiv)
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(1) “In the last five years, though, an expanding number of computer scientists have embraced developmental psychology’s proposal that infants possess basic abilities, including gaze tracking, for engaging with others in order to learn. Social interactions combined with sensory experiences gained as a child explores the world set off a learning explosion, researchers hypothesize.”
—Bower, Bruce. 2011. Meet the Growbots. Science News 179 (3): 18.
(1) “I hypothesize that the Katrina event has made people think pretty seriously about infrastructure and its vulnerability.”
—Stuart Elway, American business executive
Collocates to: might, may, therefore, led, reasonable, researchers, we
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(1) “Leaders can’t ignite the flame of passion in others if they don’t express enthusiasm for the compelling vision of their group.”
—Kouzes, James, and Barry Posner. 1995. The Leadership Challenge. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 11.
(1) “Without inspiration the best powers of the mind remain dormant, they is a fuel in us which needs to be ignited with sparks.”
—Johann Gottfried Von Herder, German poet, critic, theologian, and philosopher (1744–1803)
Collocates to: fire, help, inflation, passion, spark, war
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(1) Imagine what our business would be like if we achieved just a fraction of our goals.
(1) He imagined the entire project before committing it to paper.
(1) “The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.”
—Oscar Wilde, Irish poet, novelist, dramatist, and critic (1854–1900)
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Simile—“Imagination is everything. It is a preview of life’s coming attractions” (Albert Einstein, American theoretical physicist, 1879–1955).
(2) drink; endow; fill; infuse; permeate or take in moisture
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(1) “Education would be so much more effective if its purpose were to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they don’t know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it.
—Sir William Haley, British newspaper editor and broadcasting administrator (1901–1987)
(1) “Many companies, of course, benefit greatly from the mental and emotional investment of their creators. They thrive on the founders’ passion and on the passion of like-minded employees. Their products or services—born of extreme attention to detail—are often of the highest quality. And founders with strong personalities may imbue their progeny with distinctive identities that can be exploited in marketing.”
—Singer, Thea. 2006. Our Companies, Ourselves. Inc. 28 (11): 38–40.
Collocates to: consciousness, life, meaning, personality, significance, with
(2) affect
—Bill Gates, American entrepreneur and founder of Microsoft Co. (1955–)
(1) “A serious problem in America is the gap between academe and the mass media, which is our culture. Professors of humanities, with all their leftist fantasies, have little direct knowledge of American life and no impact whatever on public policy.”
—Camille Paglia, American author, teacher, and social critic (1947–)
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(1) “Human folly does not impede the turning of the stars.”
—Tom Robbins, American novelist (1936–)
(1) It is the manager’s job to see that nothing impedes the progress of the company’s objectives.
Collocates to: ability, development, efforts, growth, investigation, progress
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(1) Sometimes leaders are better at creating new ideas than implementing them.
(1) “It is not always what we know or analyzed before we make a decision that makes it a great decision. It is what we do after we make the decision to implement and execute it that makes it a good decision.”
—William Pollard, American physicist and an Episcopal priest (1911–1989)
(1) “Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas officially changed his government’s name to the ‘the State of Palestine’ in an attempt to implement—even if only symbolically—a recent United Nations vote to granting it the status of non-observer state.”
—Mitnick, Joshua. 2013. Palestinians Adopt Name to Show off New ‘State’ Status, World News. Wall Street Journal, January 7.
Collocates to: changes, develop, measures, necessary, plan, policies, program, reform, strategies
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(1) “Convictions do not imply reasons.”
—Margaret Deland, American novelist, short-story writer, and poet (1857–1945)
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Repetition—“But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown” (Dr. Carl Sagan, American astronomer, writer, and scientist, 1934–1996).
(2) convalesce; get better; get stronger; get well; make progress; mend; perk up; rally; recover
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(1) “The research shows that in almost every case, a bigger opportunity lies in improving your performance in the industry you’re in, by fixing your strategy and strengthening the capabilities that create value for customers and separate you from your competitors. This conclusion was reached after analyzing shareholder returns for 6,138 companies in 65 industries worldwide from 2001 to 2011.”
—Hirsh, Evan, and Kasturi Rangan. 2013. The Grass Isn’t Greener, Idea Watch. Harvard Business Review (January/February): 23.
(1) Sam found two ways of improving the efficiency of the CAD software.
(1) Engineering improved upon the original design of the device.
(1) “When you are through improving... you are through.”
—Arab proverb
(1) “The ‘Inside-Out’ approach to personal and interpersonal effectiveness means to start first with self; even more fundamentally, to start with the most inside part of self / with your paradigms, your character, and your motives. The inside-out approach says that private victories precede public victories, that making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to others. It says it is futile to put personality ahead of character, to try to improve relationships with others before improving ourselves.”
—Stephen R. Covey, American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker (1932–2012)
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(1) “I am thankful to God for this approval of the people. But while deeply grateful for this mark of their confidence in me, if I know my heart, my gratitude is free from any taint of personal triumph. I do not impugn the motives of any one opposed to me. It is no pleasure to me to triumph over any one.”
—Abraham Lincoln
Collocates to: anybody, character, might, motives, patriotism
(2) accuse; allege; assert; challenge; charge; cite; implicate
—Isaacson, Walter. 2012. The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs. Harvard Business Review (April): 98.
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(1) “The republic has been on a collision course with the Kremlin ever since Gamsakhurdia’s nationalist coalition won an election victory last October. The first acts of the new parliament were to drop the words Soviet and Socialist from the republic’s name and inaugurate a transitional to full independence.”
—Editors. 1991. Hastening the End of the Empire. Time. January 28.
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(1) “Natural science will in time incorporate into itself the science of man, just as the science of man will incorporate into itself natural science: there will be one science.”
—Karl Marx, German political philosopher and revolutionary (1818–1883)
(1) “Companies that want to make better use of the data they gather should focus on two things: training workers to increase their data literacy and efficiently incorporate information into decision making, and giving those workers the right tools.”
—Shah, Shvetank, Andrew Horne, and Jamie Capella. Good Data Won’t Guarantee Good Decisions, Idea Watch. Harvard Business Review (April): 24.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) The argument over the best way to incentivize salespeople continues without conclusive empirical data proving any one argument.
(2) encourage; foster; fuel; intensify; redouble; strengthen
(3) escalate; expand; grow; mushroom; multiply; proliferate; rise; soar; spread; swell
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(1) “Think of an investment portfolio, there are methods of managing risk and increasing efficiency, but you cannot get away from the fundamental fact that you need to diversity for the overall portfolio to win.”
—Wang, Jennifer. 2012. Radicals & Visionaries. Entrepreneur (March): 52.
(1) “Difficulties increase the nearer we approach the goal.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German playwright, poet, novelist, and dramatist (1749–1832)
(2) teach by persistent urging
(3) implant ideas through constant admonishing
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(1) “When schools fail to inculcate American values, giving short shrift to the history of the American Revolution, the American Civil War, and the American Civil Rights Movement, while emphasizing the history of Africa, Latin America, or Asia, they are severing the ties that bind Americans together in the name of diversity.”
—Braceras, Jennifer. 2005. Not Necessarily in Conflict: Americans Can Be Both United and Culturally Diverse. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy.
(1) “As a researcher, I am interested in the behavior of digital natives. The question of privacy—even the illusion of it—does not appear to be a concern. Research indicates that the early inculcation to a digital interface (for example, children using iPads) may result in people never even thinking about privacy.”
—Lee Sr., Jim. 2012. Knowledge Management Practice Leader, The Best Leaders Have Short Résumés, Interaction. Harvard Business Review (December): 19.
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(1) If you don’t process a piece of biological material properly, you’ve lost or at least run the risk of losing that piece of evidence as something which potentially can either inculpate or exculpate any particular person.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Insurance is defined as ‘coverage by contract whereby one party undertakes to indemnify or guarantee another against loss by a specified contingency or peril.’ Implicit in this is that the contingency or peril comes subsequent to the contract.”
—Letters to the editor. 2008. Open Forum, Letters to the Editor. Denver Post, August 23.
(2) bring about; bring on; cause; generate; produce; provoke; stimulate
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1), (2) “When an idea reaches critical mass there is no stopping the shift its presence will induce.”
—Marianne Williamson, American author and lecturer (1952–)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other.”
—Arthur Conan Doyle, Sr., Scottish writer (1859–1930)
(1) “It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite tame: we have nothing to write, nothing to infer. But our wiser years still run back to the despised recollections of childhood, and always we are fishing up some wonderful article out of that pond; until, by and by, we begin to suspect that the biography of the one foolish person we know is, in reality, nothing less than the miniature paraphrase of the hundred volumes of the Universal History.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, lecturer, and essayist (1803–1882)
(2) affect; change; have a bearing on; have an effect on; inspire; shape
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) The HR consultant’s report will be influencing a large number of people.
(1) The CEO was influenced in a positive way by her work ethic.
(1) The most important person you have to influence is your direct supervisor.
(1) Leaders and managers are much more effective and productive when they apply influence rather than force to accomplish tasks and objectives.
(2) brew; saturate; steep; soak; souse; suffuse
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with shades of deeper meaning.”
—Maya Angelou, American poet (1928–)
(1) “An occupation earns the right to be a profession only when some ideals, such as being an impartial counsel, doing no harm, or serving the greater good, are infused in to the conduct of people in that occupation. In like vein, a business school becomes a professional school only when in infuses those ideal into its graduates.”
—Barker, Richard. 2012. No, Management Is Not a Profession. The Big Idea. Harvard Business Review (July/August): 54.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Politicians are aiming to ingratiate themselves with Hispanics.”
—Meadows, Bob. 2010. Race (Still) Matters. Essence 41 (7):132.
(1) “No book is perfect. But Sleeper’s citation of minor mistakes, especially when accompanied by his crude and pejorative ideological labeling, is where the real dishonesty resides. His effort represents one of the more unfortunate things a book critic can do: use a review to ingratiate himself with a certain ideological camp or to be more strongly identified with that camp’s views.”
—Anonymous. 2011. Letter to the Editors. The Washington Monthly, Jul/Aug.
Collocates to: herself, himself, myself, themselves, trying, with
(2) coach; instruct; mentor; teach; train; tutor
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Without change there is no innovation, creativity, or incentive for improvement. Those who initiate change will have a better opportunity to manage the change that is inevitable.”
—William Pollard, American physicist and an Episcopal priest (1911–1989)
(1) “Advertising generally works to reinforce consumer trends rather than to initiate them.”
—Michael Schudson, American academic sociologist (1946–)
Collocates to: action, conversation, discussion, process, program, sex
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Because we were able to innovate the production process, our costs fell 20 below our top competitors.
(1) “To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines. “
—Steve Jobs, American entrepreneur; cofounder, chairman, and CEO of Apple, Inc. (1955–2011)
(1) “Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations.
—Steve Jobs, American entrepreneur; cofounder, chairman, and CEO of Apple, Inc. (1955–2011)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “This commission has rule-making power that carries the force of law. The Senate, it is true, will have the power to override its decisions—but only with a three-fifths majority. There are no procedures that allow citizens or doctors to appeal the Board’s decisions. The administrative state—here in the guise of providing health care for all—surely will reduce the people under a kind of tyranny that will insinuate itself into all aspects of American life, destroying liberty by stages until liberty itself becomes only a distant memory.”
—Erler, Edward. 2011. SUPREME Decisions Ahead. USA Today, November.
(1) “It is precisely the purpose of the public opinion generated by the press to make the public incapable of judging, to insinuate into it the attitude of someone irresponsible, uninformed.”
—Walter Benjamin, German theologian, writer, and essayist (1892–1940)
Collocates to: herself, himself, into, itself, themselves, tried, trying
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) After years of outsourcing our industrial waste removal, we began to insource it to our own employees.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Shawn Kent Hayashi asks a profound question—‘are you inspiring?’ Then through practical, real life examples, she demonstrates, how leaders can develop from being motivational to inspirational through the power of conversations.”
—Seybold, Meghan. 2012. Praise for Conversations for Creating Star Performers. New York: McGraw Hill.
(1) Her courage inspired the other employees to work even harder.
(1) “Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, lecturer, and essayist (1803–1882)
(1) “To inspire others, you have to know what motivates them, and you have to be inspired yourself about the topic you are discussing. To be a leaders and developer of others, you have to be inspiring.”
—Hayashi, Shawn Kent. 2012. Conversations for Creating Star Performers. New York: McGraw Hill, 7.
(1) “Leadership is the ability to inspire confidence and support among people who are needed to achieve organizational goals.”
—DuBrin, Andrew. 1998. Leadership Research Findings, Practice, and Skills. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2.
(1) “Few business narratives are more evocative that that of the inspired leader boldly pursuing and extraordinary innovative idea.”
—Gaovondarajan, Vijay, and Chris Trimbla. 2005. Building Breakthrough Businesses Within Established Organizations. Harvard Business Review (May): 58.
Collocates to: ability, awe, confidence, continue, educate, fear, generation, helped, motivate, others, trust
(2) cause trouble; provoke; stir up things
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Change is inevitable. This much we know. But don’t we occasionally feel the urge to instigate change rather than simply let it happen, as if we had no say in the matter?”
—Editors. 2010. Time for a Change. Town and Country 164 (5360).
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Vivid images—Indeed heresies are themselves instigated by philosophy (Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullian, Christian author from Carthage in the Roman province of Africa, AD 160–AD 225).
Collocates to: change, conflicts, investigation, social, reform
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, that to institute a new order of things.”
—Niccolo Machiavelli, Italian writer and statesman (1469–1527)
(1) “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...”
—Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States (1762–1826)
(1) The new technology will be integrated into the syllabus in both the course content and the teaching methodology.
(1) “You must integrate before you can have independence.”
—Noam Chomsky, American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, logician, historian, and political critic (1928–)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Educators need to consider global learning in terms of the conditions necessary for it to emerge, the requisite attributes and processes that intermesh with the content during global-learning activities, and finally the characteristics and responsibilities of the world citizen in relation to the attributes and processes developed through global learning.”
—Editors. 2008. Developing Global Awareness and Responsible World Citizenship With Global Learning. Roeper Review 30 (1): 11–23.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “A collection of anecdotes and maxims is the greatest of treasures for the man of the world, for he knows how to intersperse conversation with the former in fit places, and to recollect the latter on proper occasions.”
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German playwright, poet, novelist, and dramatist (1749–1832)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “One man has built his career around trying to help people track their conversational interactions, understand the hidden dynamics in them, and learn how to intervene effectively.”
—Art Kliener, Building the Skills of Insight. Strategy + Business, http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00154?gko=d4421&cid=TL20130117&utm_campaign=TL20130117 (accessed January 17, 2013).
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Companies should invest in workers and business relationships, just as they did a century ago in response to mounting inequality and public dissatisfaction. Back then Robert Bosch in Germany, William Hesketh Lever in Britain, and the Houghton family of Corning Glass in the United States, among many other leaders of large companies, took initiatives in this direction.”
—de Rothschild, Lynn Forester, and Adam Posen. 2013. How Capitalism Can Repair Its Bruised Image, Opinion. Wall Street Journal, January 2, A17.
(1) “Investing in apprenticeships and other training programs means a more productive and engaged workforce and better aligns worker’s motivations with the success of their employers.”
—de Rothschild, Lynn Forester, and Adam Posen. 2013. How Capitalism Can Repair Its Bruised Image, Opinion. Wall Street Journal, January 2.
(1) “Some firms are taking steps to expand the talent pool—for example, by investing in apprenticeships and other training programs.”
—Hancock, Bryan, and Dianna Ellsworth. 2013. Redesigning Knowledge Work. Harvard Business Review (January/February): 60.
(1) “If you invest in improving your employees’ view of your firm’s corporate character, those positive attitudes will rub off and boost customer’s opinions of the company. That will drive growth.
—Davis, Gary, and Rosa Chun. 2007. To Thine Own Staff Be Agreeable, Organizational Character. Harvard Business Review (June): 30.
(1) “Professor Katz of Harvard said it would make sense to create a more progressive tax system when corporations and the top 1 percent are commanding more of the economic pie. He said those on top should agree to some redistribution and to invest in the next generation.”
—Greenhouse, Steve. 2013. Our Economic Pickle. New York Times, January 13.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Four years ago we said we would invigorate our economy by giving people greater freedom and incentives to take risks and letting them keep more of what they earned. We did what we promised, and a great industrial giant is reborn.”
—Ronald Reagan, 40th president of the United States (1911–2004)
(1) “In our drive to comprehend we want very much sense of the world around us and we are frustrated when things seem senseless, and we are invigorated, typically, by the challenge of working out answers.”
—Nohria, Nitin, Boris Groysberg, and Linda-Eling Lee. 2008. Employee Motivation a Powerful New Tool, Honing Your Competitive Edge. Harvard Business Review (July/August): 81.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) To iterate a point made previously, customer retention is our main marketing priority.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) If a dissatisfied worker demonstrates his or her discontentment by jacking it or other visible signs, it is symbolic of a deeper character flaw.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “What seems to gall reformers most is the recent pattern of big companies using Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy code to jettison the debt of underfunded pension plans, then exit bankruptcy and survive.”
—Adams, Marilyn. 2005. ‘Fundamentally broken’ pension system in ‘crying need’ of a fix. MONEY, USA Today, November 15.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Steve Jobs took his top 100 people on an annual retreat for the purpose of strategic planning. The main activity was the list of ten things Apple should do. There was a lot of jockeying to get one’s favorite item on that list.”
—Isaacson, Walter. 2012. The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs. Harvard Business Review (April): 95.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) In the value chain model producers, vendors, suppliers, key customers, NGOs, key stakeholders and even some competitors with similar interests join forces in a coopitive venture.
—James D. Miles, American, associate professor of Psychology at Purdue University
(1) “We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
—John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th president of the United States (1917–1963)
(1) “While weight remains a taboo conversation topic in the workplace, it’s hard to overlook. A heavy executive is judged to be less capable because of assumptions about how weight affects health and stamina says Berry Posner, a professor at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business.”
—Kwoh, Leslie. 2013. Marketing. Wall Street Journal, January 16.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Aspiring entrepreneurs are increasingly jumping on board with sites like Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, Peerbackers, and ChipIn.”
—Moran, Gwen. Mob Money. Entrepreneur (March): 84.
(1) Job seekers should give serious consideration to the move before jumping onboard start-ups if they have never been in that kind of business environment.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Alice jumped through hoops to please her manager.
(1) I had to jump through hoops to get you this opportunity.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “I’m very interested in the color of sound. And I’m very interested in the juxtaposition of different things, ethnic instruments juxtaposed with symphonic instruments, and I’m interested in the ancient and the modern. I don’t know why, but it has always been something that’s fascinated me, from when I first heard a symphony orchestra I wanted to know how those sounds were made.”
—Anne Dudley, English composer and pop musician (1956–)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) In these trying economic times, sometimes all we can do is keep driving, keep moving forward, keep on keeping on.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Yes, investment flows have slowed in the green-tech sector, but the promise of new money in the stimulus package for solar, wind, electric cars, and smart grids engendered lively debates about which new technologies will help kick-start the economy and generate the most green-collar jobs.”
—Dumaine, Brian. 2009. Getting the Economy Back on Track. Fortune 159 (11): 25.
Collocates to: economy, effort, fat, help metabolism
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Only hang around people that are positive and make you feel good. Anybody who doesn’t make you feel good kick them to the curb and the earlier you start in your life the better. The minute anybody makes you feel weird and non included or not supported, you know, either beat it or tell them to beat it.”
—Amy Poehler, American actress, comedienne, producer, and writer (1971–)
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Vivid imagery—“Kicked to the Curb” (Headline New York Post Sunday, November 11, 2012).
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Individual investors and fund managers both participate in tire kicking before investing.
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Metaphor—“The fire you kindle for your enemy often burns yourself more than them” (Chinese proverb).
• Metaphor—“Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed from one another. The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbors, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the probe” (Voltaire, French philosopher and writer, 1694–1778).
(2) annoyance; express regret, or disappointment about something
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1), (2) “The public generally applauds recent ‘Shock of Order’ policing and commercial revitalization, although critics lament the loss of traditional freedoms for informal beach vendors and casual sports. These paradoxes highlight enduring tensions between social order and hierarchy on one hand, and democratic rights and equality on the other.”
—Godfrey, Brian, and M. Oliva Arguinzoni. 2012. Regulating Public Space on the Beachfronts of Rio De Janeiro. Geographical Review 102 (1): 17–34.
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Metaphor—“And give to dust that is a little gilt More laud than gilt o’er-dusted” (William Shakespeare, English dramatist, playwright, and poet, 1564–1616).
(2) introduce something; inaugurate; reveal; present; start marketing; unleash; unveil
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1), (2) I plan to launch the new advertising plan during the Christmas season.
(1) “Many companies react to competitors’ acquisition sprees reflexively, by launching bids of their own. Smart managers should consider other moves.”
—Keil, Thomas, and Tomi Laamanen. 2011. When Rivals Merge, Think Before You Follow Suit, Idea Watch. Harvard Business Review (December): 25.
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• “Yesterday, the Japanese government also launched an attack against Malaya.
Last night, Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night, Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night, Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night, the Japanese attacked Wake Island.
And this morning, the Japanese attacked Midway Island.”
—President Franklin Roosevelt, Pearl Harbor Address to the nation, Washington, D.C., 12/08/1941.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) I will lead the task force looking into ways to cut costs
(1) “A company at the forefront of this effort is Tyco. Instead of simply offering training to employees in emerging markets, Tyco has compliance personnel lead focus group-like sessions with its employees.
—Currell, Dan, and Tracy D. Bradley. 2012. Greased Palms, Giant Headaches, Idea Watch. Harvard Business Review (September): 23.
(1) “Many rising stars trip when they shift from leading a function to leading an enterprise and for the first time taking responsibility for P&L and oversight of executive decisions across corporate functions.”
—Watson, Michael. 2012. How Managers Become Leaders. Harvard Business Review (June): 68.
(1) “Leading is one of the four functions of management instilling enthusiasm by communicating with others, motivating them to work hard, and maintaining good interpersonal relations.”
—Schermerhorn, John, Richard Osborn, Mary UHL-Bien, and James Hunt. 2012. Organizational Behavior. 12th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.”
—John Cotton Dana, American librarian and museum director (1856–1929)
(1) “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
—Unknown
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “We must develop knowledge optimization initiatives to leverage our key learnings.”
—Scott Adams, American cartoonist (1957–)
(2) pay off debt; settle
(3) eliminate or kill the competition
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Hostess owners have decided to liquidate rather than ride out a nationwide strike by one of the largest of its dozen unions, the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union. The Texas-based company owned by the private-equity shop Ripplewood Holdings and other hedge funds essentially gave up.”
—WSJ Editors. 2012. Opinion. Wall Street Journal, November 18.
(1) “Let me live onward; you shall find that, though slower, the progress of my character will liquidate all these debts without injustice to higher claims. If a man should dedicate himself to the payment of notes, would not this be an injustice? Does he owe no debt but money? And are all claims on him to be postponed to a landlord’s or a banker’s?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, poet, philosopher (1802–1883)
(1) “The death tax causes one-third of all family-owned small businesses to liquidate after the death of the owner. It is also an unfair tax because the assets have already been taxed once at their income level.”
—Ric Keller, American, Member of U.S. House (1964–)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) If you listen to your customers, you will become a marketing expert.
(1) “Leaders who take organizational conversation seriously know when to stop talking and start listening. Few behaviors enhance conversational intimacy as much as attending to what people say...Duke Energy’s president and CEO, James Rogers, instituted a series of what he called ‘listening sessions’ when he was the CEO of Cinergy which later merged with Duke.”
—Groysberg, Boris, and Michael Slind. 2012. Leadership Is a Conversation. Harvard Business Review (June): 79.
(1) To listen is a communications skill and is very different from hearing, which is not a communications skill.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “But the tide (which says for no man) calling them away, that were thus loath to depart, their Reverend Pastor, falling down on his knees, and they all with him, with watery cheeks commended them with the most fervent prayers unto the Lord and his blessing.”
—Nathaniel Morton, Keeper of Records, Plymouth Colony, 1620
(2) break up; separate; waste away
(2) do; fare; fend; get along; get by; make do; muddle through
(3) succeed in dealing with, control the behavior of; handle
(4) succeed despite difficulties
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Managing is a skill that involves allocating limited resources to accomplish specific objectives.
(1) “It’s self-evident that an entrepreneur’s ability to hire talented people is vital to a company’s success. But how the entrepreneur manages those people helps define the company culture.”
—Hann, Christopher. 2012. The Masters. Entrepreneur (March): 58.
(1) “Business executives don’t manage information as well as they manage talent, capital, and brand.”
—Shah, Shvetank, Andrew Horne, and Jamie Capella. 2012. Good Data Won’t Guarantee Good Decisions, Idea Watch. Harvard Business Review (April): 24.
(1) To effectively manage, it is generally recognized one should be skilled in four functions—planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.
(1) There are three types of skills necessary to manage skillfully—technical, human, and conceptual.
Collocates to: ability, able, affairs, difficulty, effectively, how, resources, somehow, stress
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “What makes the issue so difficult is trying to maneuver around controversial past US actions at Guantanamo—harsh interrogations and alleged torture, bypassing the Geneva Conventions, use of coerced statements to justify further detention, military commissions with stripped-down due process protections.”
—Warren, Richey. 2009. Sorting Out Guant Mo Detainees. Christian Science Monitor, January 22.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Of Ernest Hemingway, for example, I feel that he was unable to marshal any adequate defense against the powerful events of his childhood, and this despite his famous toughness and the courage he could call upon in war, in hunting, in all the dangerous enterprises that seduced him.”
—Dianna Trilling, American literary critic and author (1905–1996)
—Ted W. Engstrom, American evangelical leader and author (1919–2006)
(1) “Superior business performance requires striking a healthy balance between customer value and cost structure. The goal is neither to maximize customer benefit—which would entail giving away your product—nor to minimize costs in isolation but rather to optimize the relationship between the two. Marketing and Finance both have important insights to offer, so the goal is to manage the tension between them, not to eliminate it.”
—Harvard Business Review (June, 2007): 24.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Managing a nonprofit and working with people is a totally different measure of success.”
—Healy, Wendy Stark. 2011. Ten Years Later, the Wounds Remain Open. USA Today, September.
(1) “Just how do constituents measure a characteristic as subjective as honesty, though? In our discussions with survey respondents, we learned that the leader’s behavior provided the evidence. In other words, regardless of what the readers say about their own integrity, people with to be shown they observe behavior.”
—Kouzes, James, and Barry Posner. 1999. The Leadership Challenge. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publisher, 23.
Collocates to: ballot, design, distance, items, pass, performance, progress, scale, success, tape
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Mediating disputes in their early stages can prevent them from escalating into more serious matters.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The GOP would have to swallow hard on the defense cuts, though Mr. Obama will be under huge pressure to take action to mitigate the damage to the military.”
—Strassel, Kimberly. 2012. Potomac Watch, Opinion. Wall Street Journal, December 7.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) I plan to mobilize the entire staff for the fund drive.
(1) “Big companies face the challenge of how to mobilize vast forces such as employees and new market strategies.”
—Bussey, John. 2012. What Price Salvation, The Business, Marketplace. Wall Street Journal, November 30.
(1) “It is a new world of management where managers aren’t the only leaders and where part of every manager’s success is based on how well he or she mobilizes leadership contributions from others.”
—Schermerhorn, John, Richard Osborn, Mary UHL-Bien, and James Hunt. Organizational Behavior. 12th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 4.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “As soon as the boss decides he wants his workers to do something, he has two problems: making them do it and monitoring what they do.”
—Robert Krulwich, American radio and television journalist
(1) “To reach that level of maturity, companies need to focus on (1) raising accountability for risk management to the board and executive levels; (2) embedding and en enterprise approach in to risk assessment and monitoring; optimizing risk function by breaking down silos and coordinating risk-related infrastructure, people, practices and technology across the enterprise...”
—Herrington, Michael. 2012. American Advisory Risk Leader. Ernst & Young, Interaction to HBR (September): 18.
(1) “Offering ownership opportunities is still a great way to lure and motivate top-notch employees.”
—Caggiano, Christopher. 2002. The Right Way to Pay. Inc. 24 (12): 84.
Collocates to: ability, action, behavior, employee, factor, inspire, learn, students, teachers, ways
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) One of the issues that has continued to allude managers is the answer to the question: Is there any way to mollify an employee whose job has been eliminated through no fault of theirs?
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “What I found is that to make the transition successfully, executives must navigate a tricky set of changes in their leadership focus and skills, which I call the seven seismic shifts.”
—Watson, Michael. 2012. How Managers Become Leaders. Harvard Business Review (June): 68.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Hostile takeovers net down to a power grab.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Research shows that today’s most sought-after-early-career professionals are constantly networking and thinking about their next career step.”
—Hamari, Monika. 2012. Why Top Young Mangers Are in a Nonstop Job Hunt, Talent. Harvard Business Review (July/August): 28.
(1) Networking through either one’s strong or weak network remains the most effective tool for the job search.
(1) “Networking is an important strategy for career management, including becoming an influential person. The ability to establish a network and call on support when needed helps a manager or professional exert influence.”
—DuBrin, Andrew. 1998. Leadership, Research Findings, Practice, and Skills. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 201.
—Don Catlin, American scientist and one of the founders of modern drug testing in sports (1938–)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “As a theory of mass communication, agenda setting asserts that while media may not tell us exactly what to think, they frequently tell us what to think about, when the issues at hand do not otherwise obtrude into our lives.”
—Denham, Bryan. 2006. Effects of Mass Communication on Attitudes Toward Anabolic Steroids: An Analysis of High School Seniors. Journal of Drug Issues. 36 (4): 809–829.
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Vivid imagery—“I can’t do with mountains at close quarters—they are always in the way, and they are so stupid, never moving and never doing anything but obtrude themselves” (D. H. Lawrence, British poet, novelist, and essayist, 1885–1930).
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) The legal department found a solution and they were able to obviate the problem thus preventing a major crisis.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Look, I will let you invest a million dollars in Apple if you will sort of open the kimono at Xerox PARC.”
—Steve Jobs, American entrepreneur, cofounder, chairman, and CEO of Apple, Inc. (1955–2011)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “At some point, this century or next, we may well be facing one of the major shifts in human history—perhaps even cosmic history—when intelligence escapes the constraints of biology, nature didn’t anticipate us, and we in our turn shouldn’t take artificial general intelligence (AGI) for granted. We need to take seriously the possibility that there might be a ‘opening of Pandora’s box’ moment with AGI that, if missed, could be disastrous. With so much at stake, we need to do a better job of understanding the risks of potentially catastrophic technologies.”
—Shedlock, Mike. 2012. Rise of Intelligent Machines Will Open “Pandora’s Box” Threatening Human Extinction, Business News. Favstocks.com, November 29.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Jorge had the audacity to oppugn the merits of the data privacy research, which is a subject he knows nothing about.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Fully understanding a company requires knowledge of its social structure and informal networks, and optimizing performance requires social investments.”
—Kanter, Rosabeth. 2011. How Great Companies Think Differently. Harvard Business Review (November): 75.
(1) “I’ve heard claims that we can wish our way to perfect, permanent wellness, but I haven’t seen any proof of that. Sickness and death are part of life. But you can optimize your life. You can make progress as you strive toward perfection.”
—Unknown
(1) “India and China developed by being involved in the far end of the value chain. Instead Africa will meet and may exceed the Asian experience by optimizing its resources and focusing on massive agricultural and energy (solar) projects that will primarily aid the food crisis.”
—Femi-Ishola, Olusegun. 2012. Human Resource Executive, The Best Leaders Have Short Résumés, Interaction. Harvard Business Review (December): 19.
—Lee Sr., Jim. 2012. Knowledge Management Practice Leader, The Best Leaders Have Short Résumés, Interaction. Harvard Business Review (December): 19.
(2) to arrange or organize surreptitiously so as to achieve a desired effect
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1), (2) “U.S. intelligence officials say Zadran helped the Haqqanis orchestrate attacks on troops in Kabul and southeastern Afghanistan.”
—Gannon, Kathy, Adam Goldman, and Lolita C. Baldor. 2011. Top U.S. Delegation to Enlist Pakistan’s Help. INTERNATIONAL NEWS, Associated Press, November 11.
(1) Our goal is to orchestrate a partnership with a Chinese manufacturing firm.
(1) “Digital convergence has created new opportunities for hitherto separate markets and feed the growing desire among customers for integrated solutions and services. This calls for the development of integrated—or at least commonly orchestrated—strategies and actions across business units.”
—Doz, Yves, and Mikko Kosonen. 2007. The New Deal at the Top. Harvard Business Review (June): 100.
Collocates to: ability, arrange, attacks, campaign, help, trying
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The art of giving orders is not to try to rectify the minor blunders and not to be swayed by petty doubts.”
—Sun Tzu, Chinese general and author (500 BC)
(2) control; coordinate; fix; manage; take charge
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Do you know what amazes me more than anything else? The impotence of force to organize anything.”
—Napoleon Bonaparte, French general, politician, and emperor (1769–1821)
(1) “It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize.”
—Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States (1858–1919)
(1) “Organizing is one of the four main functions of management—creating work structures and systems, and arranging resources to accomplish goals and objectives.”
—Schermerhorn, John, Richard Osborn, Mary UHL-Bien, and James Hunt. Organizational Behavior. 12th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 4.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “During the Great Depression, officials doubted monetary policy’s ability to overcome the forces that had wrecked the economy.”
—Derby, Michael, and Kristina Peterson. 2013. Is the Fed Doing Enough—or Too Much—to Aid Recovery, U.S. News. Wall Street Journal, January 7.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Harald’s first challenge as head of the plastics resins unit was shifting from leading a single function to overseeing the full set of business functions.”
—Watson, Michael. 2012. How Managers Become Leaders. Harvard Business Review (June): 68.
(2) ignore; neglect
(3) pass over indulgently; excuse
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “While weight remains a taboo conversation topic in the workplace, it’s hard to overlook. A heavy executive is judged to be less capable because of assumptions about how weight affects health and stamina says Berry Posner, a professor at Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business.”
—Kwoh, Leslie. 2013. Marketing. Wall Street Journal, January 16.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) The latest pension enhancement management is offering should pacify the union representatives.
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Simile—“The wrath of a king is as messenger of death: but a wise man will pacify it”
—Proverbs 16:14
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Friends are often chosen for similitude of manners, and therefore each palliate the other’s failings because they are his own.”
—Samuel Johnson, English poet, critic, and writer (1709–1784)
(2) talk or negotiate with someone
Word Used In Sentence(s)
(1) “It was Ismail’s first big order—$12,000. The money was enough to parlay into his first store, which opened in Dallas a year later.”
—Simons, John. 2002. Living in America. Fortune 145 (1): 92.
Collocates to: able, experience, hopes, into, success, trying
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “To provide meaningful architecture is not to parody history but to articulate it.”
—Daniel Libeskind, American architect, artist, and set designer (1946–)
(1) “I think a lot of the time you just parody yourself.”
—Dylan Moran, Irish stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and filmmaker (1971–)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Constitutional Scholars Parse Pay Measures”
—Wall Street Journal, U.S. News Headlines, January 24, 2012
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Courage makes change possible...Verizon’s leaders saw growth limits in traditional telecom, so they invested billions in fiber optics to speed up landlines and partnered with Google to deploy Android smartphones, requiring substantial changes in the firm’s practices.”
—Kanter, Rosabeth. 2011. Courage in the C-Suite. Harvard Business Review (December): 38.
Collocates to: business, firm, former, law, longtime, managing, partner, senior, sexual, trading
(1) Passing the buck is a way of life for government employees.
(2) be a regular customer of a store or business; frequent; sponsor; use; utilize
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Preferential affirmative action patronizes American blacks, women, and others by presuming that they cannot succeed on their own. Preferential affirmative action does not advance civil rights in this country.”
—Alan Keyes, American conservative political activist, author, and former diplomat (1950–)
(1) “Too many people grow up. That’s the real trouble with the world, too many people grow up. They forget. They don’t remember what it’s like to be 12 years old. They patronize, they treat children as inferiors. Well I won’t do that.
—Walt Disney, American motion-picture producer, pioneer of animated cartoon films (1901–1966)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Three-quarters of about 10 million students at four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. take at least one internship before graduating, according to the College Employment Research Institute. Interns permeate most every corner of the economy, from Disney World to Capitol Hill, the Fortune 500 to the nonprofit sector, Main Street to Silicon Valley.”
—Italie, Leanne. 2011. New Book Takes Critical Look at Internships. DOMESTIC NEWS. Associated Press, April 20.
Collocates to: air, aspect, culture, entire, every, must, seem, space, society
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “When a government becomes powerful it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurer which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance, for votes with which to perpetuate itself.”
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, Ancient Roman lawyer, writer, scholar, orator, and statesman (106 BC–43 BC)
(1) One of the problems with American management isn’t the desire to perpetuate their positions since the average position expectancy of a CEO is less than 36 months.
(1) “No monuments are erected for the righteous; their deeds perpetuate their memory.”
—Unknown
Collocates to: continue, help, itself, myth, status, serve, stereotypes, system, violence
(1) “Companies work hard to persuade existing customers to buy additional products. Often that is a money losing proposition.”
—Shah, Denish, and V. Kumar. 2012. The Dark Side of Cross-Selling, Idea Watch. Harvard Business Review (December): 21.
(1) “Persuading institutional investors to actively exercise oversight control would be useful—and would reduce fixations on quarterly results.”
—de Rothschild, Lynn Forester, and Adam Posen. 2013. How Capitalism Can Repair Its Bruised Image, Opinion. Wall Street Journal, January 2.
(1) “We need to try harder to persuade one another—to try to get people to change their minds. There isn’t nearly enough persuasion going on in America today, and there was too little, in the view of many citizens, in the past presidential campaign.”
—Jenkins, John. 2013. Persuasion as the Cure for Incivility. Wall Street Journal, January 9.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Sincerity is impossible, unless it pervades the whole being, and the pretense of it saps the very foundation of character.”
—James Russell Lowell, American poet, critic, essayist, editor, and diplomat (1819–1891)
(1) “The illusion that times that were are better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages.”
—Horace Greeley, American newspaper editor (1811–1872)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “You can surmount the obstacles in your path if you are determined, courageous and hard-working. Never be fainthearted. Be resolute, but never bitter.... Permit no one to dissuade you from pursuing the goals you set for yourselves. Do not fear to pioneer, to venture down new paths of endeavor.”
—Ralph J. Bunche, American political scientist, academic, and diplomat (1903–1971)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Many conservative House Republicans opposed last week’s fiscal-cliff measures... ‘Now it’s time to pivot and turn to the real issue which is our spending addition’ Mr. McConnell said.”
—Gorman, Siobhan, and Peter Nicholas. 2013. Battle Lines Drawn on Budget. Wall Street Journal, January 7.
—Walter Lippmann, American journalist (1889–1974)
(2) arrangement of strategic ideas in diagrams, charts, sketches, graphs, tables, maps, and other documents
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “In order to plan your future wisely, it is necessary that you understand and appreciate your past.”
—Jo Coudert, American author
(1) “Planning will help you think in terms of laying down a foundation of the particular experiences you need to create a résumé to move you into senior management.”
—Wellington, Sheila. 2001. Be Your Own Mentor. New York: Random House, 33.
(1) “One of the four functions of management is planning—setting specific performance objectives, and identifying the actions needed to achieve them.”
—Schermerhorn, John, Richard Osborn, Mary UHL-Bien, and James Hunt. 2012. Organizational Behavior. 12th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 4.
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Metaphor—“Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility” (Saint Augustine, Ancient Roman Christian theologian and bishop of Hippo, AD 354–AD 430).
—Patrick Buchanan, American conservative political commentator, author, syndicated columnist, politician, and broadcaster (1938–)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Government, for the past 80 years or so, has seen its purpose as mainly to ‘respond’ to society’s failures the moment they occur or whenever they are imagined. Adam Lanza killed with guns, so modern policy making logic posits that government must pass a law. Whether that law will accomplish its goal is...irrelevant.”
—Henninger, Daniel. 2012. The Biggest Cliff of All, Opinion. Wall Street Journal, December 27.
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Antithesis—“It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand, and what those things are. Human understanding has vulgarly occupied itself with nothing but understanding, but if it would only take the trouble to understand itself at the same time it would simply have to posit the paradox” (Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher and theologian, 1813–1855).
Word Used in Sentence(s)
“You look back and you say you’ve done everything you can. It doesn’t preclude someone from coming forward and enabling it to be done better.”
—Michael Wolf, German artist and photographer (1954–)
Collocates to: action, any, does, limitations, necessarily, not, possibility
(1) Analysts predict the firm would exceed last year’s sales figures.
(1) Jessie was the only person willing to predict we would make our sales projections.
(1) “No model or human can perfectly predict the future. But the FED models have a more specific problem. Despite all their complexity and sophistication, they have long been plagued by gaps in how they read and project the economy.”
—Hilenrath, Jon. 2012. Fed’s Computer Models Pose Problems, The Outlook. Wall Street Journal, December 31.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The prudent see only the difficulties, the bold only the advantages, of a great enterprise; the hero sees both; diminishes the former and makes the latter preponderate, and so conquers.”
—Johann Kaspar Lavater, Swiss theologian (1741–1801)
(2) award; bestow
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “As more games air, the audience becomes more fragmented when presented with more viewing options across both traditional television outlets and digital platforms, which can ultimately lead to smaller audiences for any given broadcast.”
—Bachman, Rachel, and Mathew Futterman. 2012. College Football’s Big-Money, Big-Risk Business Model, Marketplace. Wall Street Journal, December 10.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “For starters Mark Leslie, founding chairman and CEO of Veritas Software, wanted to make the firm’s decision making process more transparent. Early on he presided over a weekly meeting with employees at which, all of the issues of the day were discussed.”
—Hann, Christopher. 2012. The Masters. Entrepreneur (March): 54.
(2) bring forth; produce; yield
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “One obvious difference between coaches in business and licensed therapists is that coaches have to produce results. Managers who don’t produce positive performance results will be out of job in short order.”
—Nigro, Nicholas. 2002. The Everyday Coaching and Mentoring Book. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 12.
(1) “My research also indicates that the process that produces great leaders are similar or perhaps even identical to those that produce awful ones and this is true in domains ranging from politics to business to science. Unfiltered leaders can be domain experts—such expertise is rarely company specific. What they are not is evaluated by their new organizations, so, whatever their expertise, it is difficult to know what they will do in power and impossible to be sure that one is the right person for the job.”
—Kader, Abdul. 2012. Regional Health and Wellness Director (NC) Walmart, US, The Best Leaders Have Short Résumés, Interaction. Harvard Business Review (December): 18.
(1) Creating and producing product line extensions will add 10 percent new revenue.
(2) extend outward toward something else
(3) cause a light shadow to fall on a surface
(4) attribute an emotion to another person
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Tammy’s projecting a mid-year gain of 5 percent.
(1) We project the sales of our new product will lift our market share by 15 percent.
(1) “No model or human can perfectly predict the future. But the FED models have a more specific problem. Despite all their complexity and sophistication, they have long been plagued by gaps in how they read and project the economy.”
—Hilenrath, Jon. 2012. Fed’s Computer Models Pose Problems, The Outlook. Wall Street Journal, December 31.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “...prototyping not only speeds up the design of solutions but helps solicit valuable input and get buy-in from diverse constituents.”
—Vossoghi, Sohrab. 2011. Is the Social Sector Thinking Small Enough? Harvard Business Review (December): 40.
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Metaphor—“It is curious how sometimes the memory of death lives on so much longer than the memory of the life it purloined” (Roy Arundhati, The God of Small Things).
(2) attempt to overtake
(3) devote one’s self to something
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Learning is pedantry, wit, impertinence, virtue itself looked like weakness, and the best parts only qualify a man to be more sprightly in errors, and active to his own prejudice.”
—Joseph Addison, English essayist, poet, dramatist, and statesman (1672–1719)
(2) numerical expression or explanation
(3) determine or express or explain the quantity of, numerical measure of, or extent of
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “We should not forget, no matter how we quantify it: ‘Freedom is not free.’ It is a painful lesson, but one from which we have learned in the past and one we should never forget.”
—Unknown
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Sales managers should quash the concept of the written sales quote or bid unless the product is an undifferentiated commodity.
(2) wake from sleeping
(3) establish contact with someone by communications device
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Congress and President Obama last week raised income tax rates on high earners as part of legislation to avoid the series of spending cuts and broad tax increases known as the fiscal cliff.”
—Gorman, Siobham, and Peter Nicholas. 2013. Battle Lines Drawn on Budget. Wall Street Journal, January 7.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “He proceeded to clear his calendar, force himself to delegate tasks that were less central to success, and focus on raising the bar in each of the areas we discussed.”
—Kaplan, Robert. 2008. Reaching Your Potential, Managing Yourself. Harvard Business Review (July/August): 47.
(2) wander about; roam; saunter
(3) vary the stated limits
(4) move about an area
(5) put data in proper classes
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Mayor Bloomberg’s performance during the aftermath of hurricane Sandy has ranged from mediocre to awful.”
—Goodwin, Michael. 2012. Blueblood Bloomberg Has Ice in His Veins. New York Post, November 11.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) To make a proper career evaluation, you need to reassess the path from your first position to your current and past decisions, values, long-range goals, and interests.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “We tolerate without rebuke the vices with which we have grown familiar.”
—Publilius Syrus, Roman author, 1st century BC
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “They may attack me with an army of six hundred syllogisms; and if I do not recant, they will proclaim me a heretic.”
—Desiderius Erasmus, Dutch priest, humanist, and editor of the New Testament (1469–1536)
(2) acknowledge somebody’s achievement; appreciate; show appreciation of another’s achievement; understand; value
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The essence of management risk is recognizing patterns. There are positions in chess that appear safe to the beginner but to a more experienced player are full of risk and opportunity.”
—Konstadindis, Alexandros. 2012. Strategy Consultant, Interaction. Harvard Business Review (September): 18.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Silence is one of the hardest arguments to refute.”
—Josh Billings, American humorist (1818–1885)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “...This ‘new economy’ era saw a tremendous misallocation of resources as firms built paper empires, not sustainable value. Now corporate America has become far too cautious when it comes to growth. A misguided shift in compensation design is causing this. In the name of reigning in corporate risk-taking, boards have disconnected CEO pay from the enhancement of equity value across all industries...”
—Ubben, Jeff. 2012. How to Revive Animal Sprits in CEOs, Opinion. Wall Street Journal, November 30.
(2) increase the number or amount of
(3) add or make stronger by construction techniques
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “After brainstorming and formalizing our instincts, we commissioned a consulting firm to provide us with competitor benchmarketing. Our instincts confirmed, we clearly saw the way forward; We would reinforce our Burberry heritage, our Brutishness, by emphasizing and growing our core luxury products, innovating them and keeping them at the heart of everything we do.”
—Ahrendts, Angele. 2013. Turning an Aging British Icon into a Global Luxury Brand, How I Did It. Harvard Business Review (January/February): 41.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “If you don’t want to have to kill or capture every bad guy in the country, you have to reintegrate those who are willing to be reconciled and become part of the solution instead of a continued part of the problem.”
—David Petraeus, retired American military officer and public official
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Mr. Obama plans to reiterate Monday at an event in Michigan his call for the House to pass an extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for households making under $250,000 in annual income.”
—Bendavid, Naftali, and Carol Lee. 2012. Obama, Boehner Meet as Urgency Over Talks Increases, U.S. News. Wall Street Journal, December 10.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Indra Nooya, Chairman and CEO of Pepsico, has been called a deeply caring person who can relate to people from the boardroom to the front line.”
—Editors. 2012. Role Models. Entrepreneur (March): 63.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Consider the peaceful repose of the sausage compared with the aggressiveness and violence of the bacon.”
—Tim Robbins, in Another Roadside Attraction
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “While marathon training and predawn workouts aren’t explicitly part of a senior manager’s job description, leadership experts and executive recruiters say that staying trim is now virtually required for anyone on track for the corner office.”
—Kwoh, Leslie. 2013. Marketing. Wall Street Journal, January 16.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “On October 25, 2005, the Swedish telecommunications equipment maker Erickson announced the acquisition of key parts of Marconi’s telecom business—thus starting a wave of deals that would reshape the global industry.”
—Keil, Thomas, and Tomi Llmanen. 2011. When Rivals Merge, Think Before You Follow Suit, Idea Watch. Harvard Business Review (December): 25.
(1) “Business model innovations have reshaped entire industries and redistributed billions of dollars of value.”
—Johnson, Mark, Clayton Christensen, and Henning Kagermann. 2008. Reinventing Your Business Model. Harvard Business Review (December): 51.
Word Used in Rhythm and Imagery
• Visual imagery—“These lonely channels would frequently reverberate with the falls of ice, and so often would great waves rush along their coasts; numerous icebergs, some as tall as cathedrals, and occasionally loaded with ‘no inconsiderable blocks of rock,’ would be stranded on the outlying islets; at intervals violent earthquakes would shoot prodigious masses of ice into the waters below” (Charles Darwin, English naturalist, The Tale of the Beagle, 1809–1839).
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “‘I do not understand that Latin,’ answered Don Quixote, ‘but I know well I did not lay hands, only this pike; besides, I did not think I was committing an assault upon priests or things of the Church, which, like a Catholic and faithful Christian as I am, I respect and revere, but upon phantoms and spectres of the other world; but even so, I remember how it fared with Cid Ruy Diaz when he broke the chair of the ambassador of that king before his Holiness the Pope, who excommunicated him for the same; and yet the good Roderick of Vivar bore himself that day like a very noble and valiant knight.’”
—Miguel Cervantes, Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547–1616), Don Quixote
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “There is no risk and the reward is great.”
—Edgar Rice Boroughs, American author (1875–1950), The Warlords of Mars
Word Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Repetition—“With the out-of-door world he had no understanding nor tolerance. In food and drink he was abstemious as a monk, while exercise was a thing abhorrent. Daylight’s friendships, in lieu of anything closer, were drinking friendships and roistering friendships” (Jack London, American author, journalist, and social activist (1876–1915), Burning Daylight).
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “I may revolve and ruminate my grief.”
—William Shakespeare, English poet and playwright (1564–1516), King Henry VI, Part 1
(1) “‘True,’ replied Danglars; ‘the French have the superiority over the Spaniards, that the Spaniards ruminate, while the French invent.’”
—Alexandre Dumas, French writer (1802–1870), The Count of Monte Cristo
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “But, emulating the patience and self-denial of the practiced native warriors, they learned to overcome every difficulty; and it would seem that, in time, there was no recess of the woods so dark, nor any secret place so lovely, that it might claim exemption from the inroads of those who had pledged their blood to satiate their vengeance, or to uphold the cold and selfish policy of the distant monarchs of Europe.”
—James Fennimore Cooper, American writer (1789–1851), The Last of the Mohicans
Words Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Visual imagery—“When the waves scintillate with bright green sparks, I believe it is generally owing to minute crustacea” (Charles Darwin, English naturalist, 1809–1882, The Voyage of the Beagle).
—Thurm, Scott. 2012. Putting the Storm Behind Them, Marketplace. Wall Street Journal, November 19.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The blow had struck home, and Danglars was entirely vanquished; with a trembling hand he took the two letters from the count, who held them carelessly between finger and thumb, and proceeded to scrutinize the signatures, with a minuteness that the count might have regarded as insulting, had it not suited his present purpose to mislead the banker.”
—Alexandre Dumas, French writer (1802–1870), The Count of Monte Cristo
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Leadership involves searching out new opportunities, ways to innovate, change, ideas for growth, and improvement.
(2) choose one in preference over another; pick out one based on some quality of excellence
(3) limit to certain groups based on some standard
—Kouzes, James, and Barry Posner. 1999. The Leadership Challenge. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publisher, 17.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Oh to have been able to discharge this monster, whom John now perceived, with tardy clear-sightedness, to have begun betimes the festivities of Christmas! But far from any such ray of consolation visiting the lost, he stood bare of help and helpers, his portmanteau sequestered in one place, his money deserted in another and guarded by a corpse; himself, so sedulous of privacy, the cynosure of all men’s eyes about the station; and, as if these were not enough mischances, he was now fallen in ill-blood with the beast to whom his poverty had linked him! In ill-blood, as he reflected dismally, with the witness who perhaps might hang or save him!”
—Robert Lewis Stephenson, Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer (1850–1894), Tales and Fantasies
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Leadership is an opportunity to serve. It is not a trumpet call to self-importance.”
—J. Donald Walters, Romanian author, lecturer, and composer
(2) arrange; fix; devise; form; fashion; express or devise a plan or an idea
(3) adapt or adjust
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “We know, however, that leaders with no patience for history are missing a vital truth: A sophisticated understanding of the past is one of the most powerful tools we have for shaping the future.”
—Seaman, John T., and George David Smith. 2012. Your Company’s History as a Leadership Tool. Harvard Business Review (December): 46.
(2) to plan and work toward achieving a highly improbable goal
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Mr. Hagel shored up support from another senate Democrat who is a prominent voice on foreign policy, Barbara Boxer of California.”
—Grossman, Andrew, and Sara Murry. 2013. Hagel Wins Backing of Key Senator. U.S. News, Wall Street Journal, January 16.
(2) provide or find a suitable answer to problem
—Albert Einstein, American physicist (1879–1955)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) She spearheaded the company-sponsored civic fund drive.
(1) A leader will step forward to spearhead the writing of the company’s strategic mission statement.
(1) In the commercial real estate business, brokers spearhead major accounts. But they wouldn’t have customers without the people who oversee construction.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “In a society that tries to standardize thinking, individuality is not highly prized.”
—Alex Grey, American artist (1953–)
(1) “If you now go off and develop new standard, and standardize certain processes, you don’t have to worry about IBM coming in and asserting our patents. We are not going to be a roadblock. What we hope this encourages people to do is bring health care and educational standards up a notch”
—Bob Sutor, American researcher (1950–)
Collocates to: across, data, efforts, equipment, order, procedures
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Since taking over the CEO job I had been talking with my top leadership team about how to streamline operations, but that meeting required me to think quickly.”
—Babe, Gregory. 2011. On Creating a Lean Growth Machine, How I Did It. Harvard Business Review (July/August): 42.
(2) increase the strength of
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The research shows that in almost every case, a bigger opportunity lies in improving your performance in the industry you’re in, by fixing the your strategy and strengthening the capabilities that create value for customers and separate you from your competitors. This conclusion was reached after analyzing shareholder returns for 6,138 companies in 65 industries worldwide from 2001 to 2011.”
—Hirsh, Evan, and Kasturi Rangan. 2013. The Grass Isn’t Greener, Idea Watch. Harvard Business Review (January/February): 23.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Lucas waited until the company had stopped laughing over this; then he began again: ‘But look at it from the point of view of practical politics, comrade. Here is an historical figure whom all men reverence and love, whom some regard as divine; and who was one of us—who lived our life, and taught our doctrine. And now shall we leave him in the hands of his enemies—shall we allow them to stifle and stultify his example?”
—Upton Sinclair, American author (1878–1978), The Jungle
Word Used in Sentence(s)
“President Harry Cotterell said: ‘We have long campaigned for the closure of the loophole whereby residents try to have development land suddenly designated inappropriately as a village green to stymie un-sustainable building projects.’”
—Huddersfield Daily Examiner, October 19, 2012.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Strange as may be the historical account of how some king or emperor, having quarreled with another, collects an army, fights his enemy’s army, gains a victory by killing three, five, or ten thousand men, and subjugates a kingdom and an entire nation of several millions, all the facts of history (as far as we know it) confirm the truth of the statement that the greater or lesser success of one army against another is the cause, or at least an essential indication, of an increase or decrease in the strength of the nation—even though it is unintelligible why the defeat of an army—a hundredth part of a nation—should oblige that whole nation to submit.”
—Leo Tolstoy, Russian writer (1828–1910), War and Peace
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “I wondered what that worthy sea-dog had found to criticize in my ship’s rigging. And I, too, glanced aloft anxiously. I could see nothing wrong there. But perhaps that superannuated fellow-craftsman was simply admiring the ship’s perfect order aloft, I thought, with some secret pride; for the chief officer is responsible for his ship’s appearance, and as to her outward condition, he is the man open to praise or blame. Meantime the old salt (‘ex-coasting skipper’ was writ large all over his person) had hobbled up alongside in his bumpy, shiny boots, and, waving an arm, short and thick like the flipper of a seal, terminated by a paw red as an uncooked beef-steak, addressed the poop in a muffled, faint, roaring voice, as if a sample of every North-Sea fog of his life had been permanently lodged in his throat: “Haul ‘em round, Mr. Mate!” were his words.”
—Herman Melville, American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet (1818–1891), Moby Dick
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “In the case of varieties of the same species, the struggle will generally be almost equally severe, and we sometimes see the contest soon decided: for instance, if several varieties of wheat be sown together, and the mixed seed be resown, some of the varieties which best suit the soil or climate, or are naturally the most fertile, will beat the others and so yield more seed, and will consequently in a few years quite supplant the other varieties.”
—Charles Darwin, English naturalist (1809–1882), The Origin of the Species
(2) carry or bear the weight for; to keep from falling slipping or dropping
(3) give approval; uphold
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) A manager’s job is to directly support the work efforts of others by providing them with the resources, training, and backing they need.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Boardroom discussions often center on just two questions: How can we sustain innovation? And do we have a plan for developing future leaders who can facilitate this goal?”
—Cohn, Jeffery, Jon Katzenbach, and Gus Vlak. 2008. Finding and Grooming Breakthrough Innovators. Harvard Business Review (December): 64.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Rather than assuming that there is one ‘best’ or universal answer to questions about such things as job design, resistance to change, the best compensation plans, how to design teams, what are the causes of unethical behavior, organizational behavior recognizes that management practices must be tailored to fit the exact nature of each situation...”
—Schermerhorn, John, Richard Osborn, Mary UHL-Bien, and James Hunt. 2012. Organizational Behavior. 12th ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 4.
(1) “The Federal Reserve’s decision to tie interest rate increases to specific unemployment and inflation levels...are decisions most tailored to the specific situation the economy is in.”
—Derby, Michael, and Kristina Peterson. 2013. Is the Fed Doing Enough—or Too Much—to Aid Recovery, U.S. News. Wall Street Journal, January 7.
(2) establish as a target or goal
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Targeting new markets for existing products creates more profitable sales opportunities.
(1) “Scientists and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California said Tuesday that they have targeted a fine grained fractured slab of bedrock for the Mars rover’s first drilling attempt.”
—Hotz, Robert Lee. 2013. Mars Rover Ready to Dig In. U.S. News, Wall Street Journal, January 16.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) We team built our success.
(1) It took four years of team building and some personnel changes before we could say we were successful in creating just the right infrastructure.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The stable project management teams we grew up still work in many contexts...Situations that call for teaming are, by contrast, complex and uncertain, full of unexpected events that require rapid changes in course. No two teaming projects are alike, so people must get up to speed quickly on brand-new topics, again and again. Because solutions can come from anywhere, team members do too.”
—Edmondson, Amy C. 2012. Teamwork on the Fly, Spotlight. Harvard Business Review (April): 74.
(1) “The concept of teaming helps individuals acquire knowledge, skills, and networks. And it lets companies accelerate the delivery of current products of services while responding to new opportunities. Teaming is a way to get work done while figuring how to do it better; it’s executing and learning at the same time.”
—Edmondson, Amy C. 2012. Teamwork on the Fly, Spotlight. Harvard Business Review (April): 74.
(2) suit one’s actions to the situation
(3) parlay or deal so as to gain time
(4) effect a compromise; negotiate
(2) turn one’s back on one’s cause; make evasive or conflicting statements; equivocate over one’s calling; apostatize; renegade; shift; evade
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Companies that want to make better use of the data they gather should focus on two things: training workers to increase their data literacy and efficiently incorporate information into decision making, and giving those workers the right tools.”
—Shah, Shvetank, Andrew Horne, and Jamie Capella. 2012. Good Data Won’t Guarantee Good Decisions, Idea Watch. Harvard Business Review (April): 24.
(1) New hires are trained on all the production equipment.
(1) There are times, my dear Harvard, when I feel as if I were really capable of everything—capable de tout, as they say here—of the greatest excesses as well as the greatest heroism.”
—James Henry, American writer (1843–1916), A Bundle of Letters
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “An ELECTIVE DESPOTISM was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.”
—James Madison, American statesman and political theorist, the fourth president of the United States (1751–1836), The Federalist Papers
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “My conversation with customers gave me three insights into how we should transform our business to become more competitive: One, we had to reduce the size of our stores. They were too large and too difficult to shop in. Two, we had to dramatically improve the in-store experience for our customers. That meant retraining our associates to stop focusing on the things our existing systems had incentivized them to do and focus on customer instead. Three, we had to look beyond office products to provide other services our customers wanted. They wanted copying, printing, and shipping. They wanted help installing software and fixing computer. We needed to expand our offering if we were to remain relevant to our customers.”
—Peters, Kevin. 2011. Office Depot’s President on How Mystery Shopping Helped Spark a Turnaround. Harvard Business Review (November): 48.
(1) “Zhongxing Medical transformed the medical equipment business by focusing on direct digital radiography in a novel way.”
—Williamson, Peter, and Ming Zeng. 2009. Value-for-Money Strategies for Recessionary Times. Harvard Business Review (March): 70.
(1) “In 2003, Apple introduced the iPod with the iTunes store, revolutionizing portable entertaining, creating a new market, and transforming the company.”
—Johnson, Mark, Clayton Christensen, and Henning Kagermann. 2008. Reinventing Your Business Model. Harvard Business Review (December): 51.
(1) “In his life time, Steve Jobs transformed seven industries.”
—Isaacson, Walter. 2012. The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs. Harvard Business Review (April): 94.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Walt Disney Co. posted a 14% increase in quarterly profit and Chief Executive Robert Iger said the company is ‘transitioning out of an investment mode and transitioning in a more-compelling growth mode’, having completed several multibillion dollar acquisitions in recent years.”
—Orden, Erica. 2012. ESPN, Parks Propel Disney, Corporate News, December 9, 2012, p. B3.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Don Quixote wrapped the bedclothes round him and covered himself up completely, leaving nothing but his face visible, and as soon as they had both regained their composure he broke silence, saying, ‘Now, Senora Dona Rodriguez, you may unbosom yourself and out with everything you have in your sorrowful heart and afflicted bowels; and by me you shall be listened to with chaste ears, and aided by compassionate exertions.’”
—Miguel Cervantes, Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright (1547–1616), Don Quixote
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Marketing and Finance have a famously fractious relationship, with each accusing the other of failing to understand how to create value. That tension may seem to be dysfunctional, but when channeled right, it can actually be productive.”
—Harvard Business Review (June, 2007): 25.
(1) “Understanding the values of the person or team you are developing will enable you to build rapport and create meaningful connections.”
—Hayashi, Shawn Kent. 2012. Conversations for Creating Star Performers. New York: McGraw Hill, 41.
(1) “For the past three years we have undertaken in-depth case study research on the strategy and leadership of a dozen large global companies...Our goal was to understand what makes a company strategically agile, able to change its strategies and business models rapidly in response to major shifts in its market space.”
—Doz, Yves, and Mikko Kosonen. 2007. The New Deal at the Top. Harvard Business Review (June): 100.
(2) promise; guarantee; to give a pledge
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Career development is not something someone should undertake just when they become unhappy in their position or lose their job.
(1) He always volunteered to undertake the most difficult tasks on the team.
(1) Undertaking difficult tasks demonstrates a willingness to take risks—a leadership trait.
(2) agree to buy at a given price on a certain date
(3) subscribe or agree to by contract
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) The unforeseen problems and difficulties unified the project management team like nothing else could.
(1) Unifying a demoralized and self-interested staff is a very difficult management task.
(2) promote to a more skilled level or position; raise to higher salary
(3) raise in importance, value, or esteem
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) Upgrading the equipment made everyone more effective.
—Alexander Hamilton, American founding father, soldier, economist, political philosopher (1755–1804), The Federalist Papers
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “‘At this moment,’ said Porthos, ‘I feel myself pretty active; but at times I vacillate; I sink; and lately this phenomenon, as you say, has occurred four times. I will not say this frightens me, but it annoys me. Life is an agreeable thing. I have money; I have fine estates; I have horses that I love; I have also friends that I love: D’Artagnan, Athos, Raoul, and you.’”
—Alexandre Dumas, French writer (1802–1870), The Man in the Iron Mask
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “This is all that is necessary to validate the use of images to be made in the sequel.”
—Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic (1872–1970), The Analysis of Mind
—Headline of article in Wall Street Journal, December 21, 2012.
(1) “Delays in Medicaid Pay Vex Hospitals”
—Headline of article in Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2013.
Words Used with Rhythm and Imagery
• Repetition—“Action and affection both admit of contraries and also of variation of degree. Heating is the contrary of cooling, being heated of being cooled, being glad of being vexed. Thus they admit of contraries. They also admit of variation of degree: for it is possible to heat in a greater or less degree; also to be heated in a greater or less degree. Thus action and affection also admit of variation of degree. So much, then, is stated with regard to these categories” (Aristotle, Greek philosopher and polymath, 384 BC–322 BC, The Categories).
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Hannibal was a leader caught in a conflict between two ancient superpowers for control of the western Mediterranean. Carthage and Roam were vying for power when Hannibal seized the initiative and turned the ancient world upside down.”
—Forbes, Steve, and John Prevas. 2009. Power Ambition Glory. New York: Crown Business Press, 7.
(1) “Facebook and Google are vying to become the primary gateway to the internet. Google has long served as a destination to find websites and information; Facebook, to share gossip and photos with friends. But those distinctions are increasingly blurring, and billions in advertising dollars are at stake.”
—Rusli, Evelyn, and Anir Efrati. 2013. Apple vs. Google vs. Facebook vs. Amazon. Wall Street Journal, January 16.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Now, as both of these gentlemen were industrious in taking every opportunity of recommending themselves to the widow, they apprehended one certain method was, by giving her son the constant preference to the other lad; and as they conceived the kindness and affection which Mr. Allworthy showed the latter, must be highly disagreeable to her, they doubted not but the laying hold on all occasions to degrade and vilify him, would be highly pleasing to her; who, as she hated the boy, must love all those who did him any hurt.”
—Henry Fielding, English novelist and dramatist (1707–1754), The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Then why—since the choice was with himself—should the individual, whose connexion with the fallen woman had been the most intimate and sacred of them all, come forward to vindicate his claim to an inheritance so little desirable?”
—Nathaniel Hawthorne, American novelist and short-story writer (1804–1864), The Scarlet Letter
(2) make vital; provide life to; give vigor and animation to
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The fact is that we had absolutely incompatible dispositions and habits of thought and action, and our danger and isolation only accentuated the incompatibility. At Halliford I had already come to hate the curate’s trick of helpless exclamation, his stupid rigidity of mind. His endless muttering monologue vitiated every effort I made to think out a line of action, and drove me at times, thus pent up and intensified, almost to the verge of craziness.”
—H.G. Wells, English writer (1866–1946), The War of the Worlds
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The Trojans were scared when they saw the two sons of Dares, one of them in fright and the other lying dead by his chariot. Minerva, therefore, took Mars by the hand and said, ‘Mars, Mars, bane of men, bloodstained stormer of cities, may we not now leave the Trojans and Achaeans to fight it out, and see to which of the two Jove will vouchsafe the victory? Let us go away, and thus avoid his anger.’”
—Homer, author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and revered as the greatest of ancient Greek epic poets, The Iliad
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The NASA Mars rover spacecraft voyaged 352 million miles to reach Mars this past August, but the next step will be measured in fractions of an inch. The Rover’s drill can chip about 2 inches in to the interior of Mars to extract a small spoonful of powdery rock for analysis in an onboard chemistry kit.”
—Hotz, Robert Lee. 2013. U.S. News. Mars Rover Ready to Dig In. Wall Street Journal, January 16.
(2) to approach the end
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) The fire of the regiment had begun to wane and drip. The robust voice, that had come strangely from the thin ranks, was growing rapidly weak.”
—Stephen Crane, American novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist (1871–1900), The Red Badge of Courage
(1) “So the one went off with one group of scholars, and the other with another. In a little while the two met at the bottom of the lane, and when they reached the school they had it all to themselves. Then they sat together, with a slate before them, and Tom gave Becky the pencil and held her hand in his, guiding it, and so created another surprising house. When the interest in art began to wane, the two fell to talking.”
—Mark Twain, American author and humorist (1832–1910), Tom Sawyer
(2) to wriggle
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “L. Frank Baum, The Ozma of Oz” For Cocky had a way with him, and ways and ways. He, who was sheer bladed steel in the imperious flashing of his will, could swashbuckle and bully like any over-seas roisterer, or wheedle as wickedly winningly as the first woman out of Eden or the last woman of that descent. When Cocky, balanced on one leg, the other leg in the air as the foot of it held the scruff of Michael’s neck, leaned to Michael’s ear and wheedled, Michael could only lay down silkily the bristly hair-waves of his neck, and with silly half-idiotic eyes of bliss agree to whatever was Cocky’s will or whimsey so delivered.”
—Jack London, American author, journalist, and social activist (1876–1916), Michael, Brother of Jerry
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “After months of trial runs, NASA’s Curiosity rover is ready to scratch the surface of Mars, positioning itself this week to drill in to the crust of the red planet and wildcat for evidence of life for the first time.”
—Hotz, Robert Lee. 2013. U.S. News. Mars Rover Ready to Dig In. Wall Street Journal, January 16.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense.”
—Carl Sagen, American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author (1934–1996)
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “The 94-word intelligence summary emerged from a daylong email debate between more than two dozen intelligence officials, in which they contested and whittled the available evidence into a bland summary with no reference to al Qaeda.”
—Gorman, Sobhan, and Adam Entous. 2012. Bureaucratic Battle Blunted Libia Attack, Talking Points. Wall Street Journal, December 4.
(2) to produce or bear
(3) to submit, surrender; give up to another
(4) to give way to physical force
(5) to give up willingly a right, possession, privilege
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) “Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin, as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one hundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity, or rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three fourths, and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may hence be had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose mere integument yields such a lake of liquid as that.”
—Herman Melville, American novelist, short-story writer, essayist, and poet (1919–1891), Moby Dick
(1) “You appear to me, Mr. Darcy, to allow nothing for the influence of friendship and affection. A regard for the requester would often make one readily yield to a request, without waiting for arguments to reason one into it. I am not particularly speaking of such a case as you have supposed about Mr. Bingley. We may as well wait, perhaps, till the circumstance occurs before we discuss the discretion of his behaviour thereupon. But in general and ordinary cases between friend and friend, where one of them is desired by the other to change a resolution of no very great moment, should you think ill of that person for complying with the desire, without waiting to be argued into it?”
—Jane Austen, English novelist (1775–1817), Pride and Prejudice
(1) “A TROUBLESOME CROW seated herself on the back of a Sheep. The Sheep, much against his will, carried her backward and forward for a long time, and at last said, ‘If you had treated a dog in this way, you would have had your deserts from his sharp teeth.’ To this the Crow replied, ‘I despise the weak and yield to the strong. I know whom I may bully and whom I must flatter; and I thus prolong my life to a good old age.’”
—Aesop, a fabulist or story teller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as Aesop’s Fables (620 BC–560 BC), The Crow and the Sheep
Word Used in Sentence(s)
“Steve Jobs’ Zen like ability to focus was accompanied by the related instinct to simplify things by zeroing in on their essence and eliminating the unnecessary components.”
—Isaacson, Walter. 2012. The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs. Harvard Business Review (April): 94.
Word Used in Sentence(s)
(1) When the Republicans say they want to zero out tax payer funding for PBS, there is a very good reason to believe the threat.
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