7. 100 Top Action Verbs for Schooling, Sagacity, Shrewdness, and Other Times to Be Sharp and Serious

—Editors. “International Economics and National Security,” Foreign Affairs, Volume 70, Issue 5, Winter 1991/1992: pg. 74–90.

(1) “The decision to restrict gasoline sales was a departure for Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had said last week that they anticipated that fuel shortages would have abated by now.”

—York, Michael Howard. “Gas Rationing Put in Place in New York,” Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2012: pg. A15.

(1) “We should every night call ourselves to an account: What infirmity have I mastered to-day? what passions opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.”

—Seneca, Roman philosopher (mid-first century AD)

(2) end; halt; put a stop to something; terminate

(3) grow less; make less active or intense

—Saunders, Nicole. “Yes, There Is a Love Out There for You,” Essence, Volume 36, Issue 4, August 2005: pg. 142.

Collocates to: able, body, costs, energy, heat, impact, light, moister, shock, water

(2) draw into oneself; grasp; realize; recognize; take in; understand

(3) become captivated, interested, engaged, or preoccupied in; fascinated

—William Faulkner, American short-story writer and novelist (1897–1962)

(1) “When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books; they quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.”

—Michel de Montaigne, French philosopher and writer (1533–1592)

(1) “Lecturers should remember that the capacity of the mind to absorb is limited to what the seat can endure.”

—Unknown

(1) “Throw away all ambition beyond that of doing the day’s work well. The travelers on the road to success live in the present, heedless of taking thought for the morrow. Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day’s work absorb your entire energies, and satisfy your wildest ambition.”

—William Osler, Canadian physician (1849–1919)

(2) happen or develop faster; progress faster

—Saunders, Laura and Hanna Karp. “Fiscal Talks Spur Charitable Giving,” Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2012: pg. A1.

(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.”

—Edmondson, Amy C. “Teamwork on the Fly,” Harvard Business Review, April 2012: pg. 74.

(2) make more noticeable; play up; stress something

(3) mark with an accent

—Donna Karan, American fashion designer (1948–)

(1) “A science is said to be useful if its development tends to accentuate the existing inequities in the distribution of wealth, or more directly promotes the destruction of human life.”

—Godfrey Harold Hardy, English mathematician (1877–1947)

Collocates to: differences, opportunities, positives, shapes

(1) It took longer than he thought to become acclimated to the New York City social life.

(2) realize in action or make real

(3) fulfill the potential of

—W. Clement Stone, American author (1902–2002)

Collocates to: consummate, embody, help, individuals, potential, their

(1) Toni’s speech actuated the Congress to finally act on the bill.

(2) make fit often by modification

(3) cause something to change for the better

—Stephen Hawking, British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author (1941–)

(1) “The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher.”

—Chinese Proverb

(1) “Adapt yourself to the things among which your lot has been cast and love sincerely the fellow creatures with whom destiny has ordained that you shall live.”

—Marcus Aurelius, Roman emperor (121–180 AD)

(1) “The key to success is often the ability to adapt.”

—Unknown

(1) “Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.”

—George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright and a cofounder of the London School of Economics (1896–1950)

Collocates to: ability, able, change, conditions, environment, must, quickly

(1) “In an effort to defend against a hate crime charge, some defendants may try to prove their lack of prejudice by introducing evidence of nonracist speech, memberships, and activities. How could a judge rule such evidence irrelevant? If the defendant is permitted to adduce such evidence, however, the prosecutor will almost certainly be allowed to introduce rebuttal evidence of the defendant’s racism.”

—Jacobs, James B. “Should Hate Be a Crime?,” Public Interest, Issue 113, Fall 1993: pg. 3–14, 12p.

Collocates to: can, evidence, link, might

(1) It is better not to decide on a career until somebody can advise you.

(1) “In every society some men are born to rule, and some to advise.”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, lecturer, and essayist (1803–1882)

(1) “Can one preach at home inequality of races and nations and advocate abroad good-will towards all men?”

—Dorothy Thompson, American journalist and radio broadcaster (1893–1961)

(1) “Those who advocate common usage in philosophy sometimes speak in a manner that suggests the mystique of the ‘common man.’”

—Bertrand Russell, English logician and philosopher (1872–1970)

(2) distress; disturb; move; touch; upset

(3) assume; fake; imitate; pretend or have; put on

(1) “Being fit matters...New research suggests that a few extra pounds or a slightly larger waist line affects an executive’s perceived leadership ability as well as stamina on the job.”

—Kwoh, Leslie. “Marketing,” Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2013: pg. B1.

Collocates to: adversely, does, factor, how, negatively, performance, positive

(2) encourage; support; sustain; uphold

—Johnson, W. Brad and Charles R. Ridley. The Elements of Mentoring, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004: pg. 10.

(1) “The more I read, the more I meditate; and the more I acquire, the more I am enabled to affirm that I know nothing.”

—Voltaire, French philosopher and writer (1694–1778)

(1) “Man is born a predestined idealist, for he is born to act. To act is to affirm the worth of an end, and to persist in affirming the worth of an end is to make an ideal.”

—Oliver Wendell Holmes, American physician, poet, writer, humorist, and professor (1809–1894)

(1) The firm’s public statement of the incident appeared to be an aggrandized version of their mission statement.

—Eugene Delacroix, greatest French romantic painter (1798–1863)

(1) “With the exception of the instinct of self-preservation, the propensity for emulation is probably the strongest and most alert and persistent of the economic motives proper.”

—Thorstein Veblen, American economist (1857–1929)

(1) “Great effort is required to arrest decay and restore vigor. One must exercise proper deliberation, plan carefully before making a move, and be alert in guarding against relapse following a renaissance.”

—Horace, ancient Roman poet (65 BC–8 BC)

—Ralph Merkle, American inventor of cryptographic hashing, and more recently a researcher and speaker on molecular nanotechnology (1952–)

(1) “We have discovered that the scheme of ‘outlawing war’ has made war more like an outlaw without making it less frequent and that to banish the knight does not alleviate the suffering of the peasant.”

—C.S. Lewis, British scholar and novelist (1898–1963)

Collocates to: concerns, pain, poverty, some, suffering

(2) arrange something in reference with something else; place in line so as to arrange in a particular order

(1) The firm’s objectives and goals must be aligned.

(1) “Intuitional logic should be aligned with economic logic but need not be subordinate to it. For example, all companies require capital to carry out business activities and sustain themselves. However, at great companies, profit is not the sole end; rather, it is a way of ensuring that returns will continue.”

—Kanter, Rosabeth. “How Great Companies Think Differently,” Harvard Business Review, November 2011: pg. 68.

(1) “When you examine the lives of the most influential people who have ever walked among us, you discover one thread that winds through them all. They have been aligned first with their spiritual nature and only then with their physical selves.”

—Albert Einstein, American physicist (1879–1955)

(1) “Parallels between ancient leaders and modern executives will never align perfectly, but there is definite value in making the comparisons, Ancient leaders obviously operated under different conditions and lacked many advantages that modern day CEOs take for granted, but they ran their empires by utilizing similar styles of leadership.”

—Forbes, Steve and John Prevas. Power, Ambition, Glory, NY: Crown Business Press, 2009: pg.10.

—Unknown

(1) “The animosities of sovereigns are temporary, and may be allayed; but those which seize the whole body of people, and of a people too, dictate their own measures, produce calamities of long duration.”

—Thomas Jefferson, 3rd U.S. President (1762–1826)

(2) add details to; clarify; develop; elaborate on; go into details

—Shah, Denish and V. Kumar. “The Dark Side of Cross-Selling,” Harvard Business Review, December 2012: pg. 22.

(1) Rick will be given the responsibility of analyzing the impact of the new quotas on the sales department’s budget.

(1) “You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success—or are they holding you back?”

—W. Clement Stone, American author (1902–2002)

(1) “There is nothing to fear except the persistent refusal to find out the truth, the persistent refusal to analyze the causes of happenings.”

—Dorothy Thompson, American journalist and radio broadcaster (1893–1961)

(1) “The method of nature: who could ever analyze it?”

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, lecturer, and essayist (1803–1882)

Collocates to: ability, collect, data, evaluate, identify, information, results, sample, situation, used

—Smith, Douglas. “A Lockean Analysis of Section One of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, Volume 25, Issue 3, Summer 2002: pg. 1095.

(2) allow; authorize; consent; grant; pass; sanction

—Robert Lynd, Irish essayist and journalist (1879–1949)

(1) “They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that dislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion.”

—Thomas Hobbes, English philosopher (1588–1679)

(1) “Nothing should so much diminish the satisfaction which we feel with ourselves as seeing that we disapprove at one time of that which we approve of at another.”

—François de la Rochefoucauld, French classical author (1613–1680)

(2) find out with certainty

Collocates to: able, difficult, extent, order, study, try, whether

(2) to estimate the value, cost, benefit, or worth of

(1) “A mid-career transition is a great opportunity for a leader to help an employee assess her current interest areas and identify areas of satisfaction as well as development opportunities. In addition, a leader can look at burnout areas and determine if there are opportunities to rekindle that interest.”

—Betty Karkau, Senior Consultant, Career Systems International, author of manuscript, “Stopping the Mid-Career Crisis,” 2009

Collocates to: ability, designed, difficulty, effects, items, impact, order, situation, student, study, used, whether

(1) I worked to assuage my own guilt over the incident.

(1) “I’ve never known any trouble that an hour’s reading didn’t assuage.”

—Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788–1860)

Collocates to: anger, anguish, anxiety, concerns, consciences, curiosity, doubt, fears, feelings, guilt, hunger, hurt, loneliness, pride, worries

(1) A growing third-party movement is auguring for a far greater voter turnout in the next election.

(1) “These readings augur well in the very near term for supportive bond price action. We, however, still look for core inflation to tick up modestly and for overall labor market conditions to improve gradually.”

—Chris Sullivan

Collocates to: does, future, might, not, poorly, well

—McKanna, Jr., Clare. “Seeds of Destruction: Homicide, Race, and Justice in Omaha, 1880–1920,” Journal of American Ethnic History, Volume 14, Issue 1, Fall 1994: pg. 65.

Collocates to: biometrics, document, further, identity, tape, used, validate

(1) President Bill Clinton averred that he smoked grass in college but did not inhale.

(1) “The anti-reformer is Chuck Schumer, the Senator from Wall Street, New York, who averred at the National Press Club last week that his party will have nothing to do with tax reform of the kind that Ronald Reagan negotiated with Democrats in 1989, or that Simpson-Bowles deficit commission proposed in 2010, or that the Gang of Six Senators have been working on. It’s Chuck’s way or no way.”

—Opinion. “Schumer to Tax Reform: Drop Dead,” Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2012.

(1) “I know the thing that’s most uncommon

(Envy be silent and attend!);

I know a reasonable woman,

Handsome and witty, yet a friend.

Not warped by passion, awed by rumor,

Not grave through pride, or gay through folly;

An equal mixture of good humor

And sensible soft melancholy.

Has she no faults, then (Envy says), sir?’

Yes, she has one, I must aver:

When all the world conspires to praise her,

The woman’s deaf, and does not hear.”

—Alexander Pope, British poet (1688–1744), “On a Certain Lady at Court”

(1) If you set out to avow something, then acknowledge you are pledging your name, affirming your consciousness, and admitting publically, you are asserting your honor.

(1) “Cautious, careful people always casting about to preserve their reputation or social standards never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest are willing to be anything or nothing in the world’s estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathies with despised ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences.”

—Susan B. Anthony, American civil rights leader (1820–1906)

Collocates to: both, many, others, should

—“Backcasting,” http://forlearn.jrc.ec.europa.eu/guide/4_methodology/meth_backcasting.htm, accessed April 20, 2013.

(1) Managers need to use a balanced approach in handling worker disputes.

(1) An uncertain economic period may be the ideal condition for battle testing your inexperienced marketing team.

—William Shakespeare, English dramatist, playwright, and poet (1564–1616)

—Armijo, Leslie Elliott. “Inflation and Insouciance: The Peculiar Brazilian Game,” Latin American Research Review, Volume 31, Issue 3, 1996: pg. 7, 40p.

(1) “‘We bifurcate the society, with people who are so-called ‘smart’ getting pushed toward book learning, and everyone else getting pushed toward the trades.’ Ever since the Industrial Revolution, the guys who owned things wore suits, and the guys who ran the lathes wore work clothes. If an engineer wanted something made, he’d draw it and give the drawing to a machinist who then made it. I wanted to be the guy who designed it and made it.”

—Sulkis, Brian. “Oakland: Sculpting a Hands-on Life,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 20, 2005: pg. F1.

Collocates to: expressed, margining, may, occurrence, or, terminology

(1) “When beggars die there are no comets seen; but the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.”

—William Shakespeare, English dramatist, playwright, and poet (1564–1616)

(1) “I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”

—Jack London, American short-story writer and novelist (1876–1916)

(1) “The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket; a very few names may be considered as perpetual lamps that shine unconsumed.”

—Samuel Johnson, English poet, critic, and writer (1709–1784)

—Bayles, Martha. “The Return of Cultural Diplomacy,” Newsweek, December 31, 2008.

(1) “In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish’d dove; in the Spring and yon man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love.”

—Alfred Lord Tennyson, English poet (1809–1892)

Collocates to: brand, credentials, image, opportunity, reputation, surface

—Wessel, David. “Long-Term Economic To-Do List,” Wall Street Journal, November 8, 2012: pg. A8.

(1) American secondary and collegiate education needs to be calibrated more toward providing students with educations that prepare them for knowledge-based work, which is what American industry needs now.

Collocates to: analyze, careful, data, difficult, model, properly, used

(1) “At the outset when Robert Eaton was named as CEO replacing Lee Iacocca at General Motors, he informed key staffers that he believed in participatory management, not consensus management. The message was that Eaton would be calling the shots.”

—DuBrin, Andrew. Leadership Research Findings, Practice, and Skills, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.

—Elizabeth Gilbert, American author of Eat, Pray, Love (1969–)

(1) “Quote mining is a form of cherry-picking, and the genuine points used in construction of straw man arguments are typically cherry-picked.”

—http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/, accessed, April 23, 2013.

—Alvin Ailey, American dancer and choreographer (1931–1989)

—Crites, John, O. Career Counseling, Models, Methods, and Materials, NY: McGraw Hill, 1981.

(1) “George Bush will join John Quincy Adams as the only other son of a president to win the White House. He also joins Adams as one of only four men who won the job despite losing the popular vote. Bush also plunges head-on into political uncertainty that could circumscribe his success.”

—Sherman, Mark and Ken Herman. “Now the Work Begins; President-elect Bush Faces Big Building Job with Little Time,” Cox Washington Bureau, Atlanta Journal Constitution, December 14, 2000.

Collocates to: activities, boundaries, power, social, tenure, trying

—Edward O. Wilson, American biologist, researcher, theorist, naturalist, and author (1929–)

—Ghadar, Fariborz, John Sviokla, and Dietrich Stephan, “Why Life Science Needs its Own Silicone Valley,” Harvard Business Review, July–August 2012: pg. 25.

(1) “The Image is more than an idea. It is a vortex or cluster of fused ideas and is endowed with energy.”

—Ezra Pound, American editor, poet, translator, and critic (1885–1972)

—Muhammad Asad, journalist, traveler, writer, social critic, linguist, thinker, and reformer (1900–1992), Road to Mecca

—Horst, Gary. “CEOs Need a NEW Set of Beliefs,” Harvard Business Review Blog, September, 21, 2012: pg. 22.

(1) “Ninety percent of leadership is the ability to communicate something people want.”

—Dianne Feinstein, American senator (1933–)

(1) “Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them, and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can’t miss.”

—Lee Iacocca, American business executive (1924–)

(1) “Mayor Bill Akers of Seaside Heights, NJ now removed from the whirlwind of Hurricane Sandy’s ferocity, and with the benefit of hindsight, the major says he has his regrets. He could, he says, have stopped by one of the shelters to speak to residents personally. He would have communicated information sooner.”

—Goldberg, Dan. “Responses to Sandy: From Great to Galling,” Star Ledger, November 11, 2012: pg. 1.

Collocates to: ability, able, effectively, information, language, ways

—Leonardi, Paul. “Early Prototypes Can Hurt a Team’s Creativity,” Harvard Business Review, December 2011: pg. 28.

—Mohandas Gandhi, Indian philosopher (1869–1948)

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet, lecturer, and essayist (1803–1882)

(1) “The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.”

—George Bernard Shaw, Irish literary critic, playwright, and essayist (1856–1950)

(2) trace the course of deviation

(1) “Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labor, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.”

—Arthur Conan Doyle, Sr., Scottish writer, creator of the detective Sherlock Holmes (1859–1930)

Collocates to: able, can, effects, possible

—Plato, classical Greek philosopher and mathematician (472 BC–347 BC)

(1) “I deem it the duty of every man to devote a certain portion of his income for charitable purposes; and that it is his further duty to see it so applied as to do the most good of which it is capable.”

—Thomas Jefferson, American founding father, 3rd U.S. President (1743–1826)

(2) circumscribe; delimit; delimitate; demarcate; mark out

—Hayashi, Shawn Kent. Conversations for Creating Star Performers, NY: McGraw Hill, 2012: pg. 19.

(1) Clearly defining the scope of the project will help prevent scope creep.

(1) The project manager should clearly define the scope of the project.

(1) “Speech sounds cannot be understood, delimited, classified, and explained except in the light of the tasks which they perform in language.”

—Roman Jakobson, Russian linguist and literary theorist (1896–1982)

(1) “Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.”

—Thomas Jefferson, American founding father, 3rd U.S. President (1743–1826)

(1) His responsibility was to delineate the scope of internal audits for the board finance committee.

Collocates to: boundary, combinations, limit, scope, sections, used

—Conway, Colleen. “The Implementation of the National Standards in Music Education: Capturing the Spirit of the Standards,” Music Educators Journal, Volume 94, Issue 4, March 2008: pg. 34–39, 6p.

Collocates to: attempts, experience, help, process, research, trying

—Editors. “Prerequisites for Economic Integration in Africa,” Africa Today, Volume 42, Issue 4, 1995, 4^th Quarter: pg. 56.

Collocates to: area, between, border, boundaries, clearly, social, spaces, territories

(2) determine; establish; make evident or plain; prove; reveal; validate

(1) “It’s hard to detect good luck—it looks so much like something you’ve earned.”

—Frank A. Clark, English author and writer (1943–)

(1) “The Center for Creative Learning staff collected hundreds of peer-performance reviews and health-screening results from CEOs and other senior-level managers. From this data, they detected a correlation that a leader’s weight may indeed influence perceptions of leaders among subordinates, peers, and superiors.”

—Kwoh, Leslie. “Marketing,” Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2013: pg. B1.

(2) ascertain; clarify; establish; find out; uncover

(3) affect; control; govern; influence; mold; shape

(1) The results of the research are one factor in whether or not we determine to proceed with the new product.

(1) “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”

—Zig Ziglar, American author, salesman, and motivational speaker (1926–2012)

(1) “Best practice companies such as Apple, Dell, HP, Honda, IBM, LGE, and Toyota do what we just advise: They have approved vendor lists but never completely relinquish decisions about a product’s components and material to top-tier suppliers. They carefully determine which items they should directly source themselves and which they should totally delegate.”

—Choi, Thomas and Tom Linton. “Don’t Let Your Supply Chain Control Your Business,” Harvard Business Review, December 2011: pg. 113.

(1) “In India, the Ministry of Agriculture’s watershed management program coordinates NGOs that train government and other NGO staff to evaluate social impacts and diagnose organizational problems.”

—Fisher, Julie. “Local and Global: International Governance and Civil Society,” Journal of International Affairs, Volume 57, Issue 1, Fall 2003: pg. 19–39, 21p.

Collocates to: able, difficult, doctors, problems, treat, used

(2) perform well and receive recognition

—Confucius, Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher (551–479 BCE)

(1) “Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”

—Ernest Hemingway, American writer (1899–1961)

(1) “Learn to distinguish the difference between errors of knowledge and breaches of morality.”

—Ayn Rand, Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter (1905–1982)

—Buddha, Indian spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded (circa 563 BC–483 BC)

(1) “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why...I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”

—John F. Kennedy, 35th U.S. President (1917–1963)

(1) “This is No Place to Dream Small”

—Ad headline for NY state in Wall Street Journal, December 12, 2012.

(1) “Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.”

—James Dean, American motion picture actor (1931–1955)

—Hann, Christopher. “The Masters,” Entrepreneur, March 2012: pg. 58.

(1) “It is important to note, however, that on the basis of current research and specific conditions (ophthalmologic or age), appropriate magnification—through the use of low vision devices and large print—can enhance the reading performance of individuals with low vision.”

—Russell-Minda, Elizabeth. “The Legibility of Typefaces for Readers with Low Vision: A Research Review,” Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, Volume 101, Issue 7, July 2007: pg. 402–415, 14p.

Collocates to: ability, learning, performance, quality, students, understanding

—Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spanish writer (1547–1616)

(2) make or be an epitome of

—Unknown

(2) consider; hold to be; regard

—Bowels, Samuel. “When Economic Incentives Backfire,” Harvard Business Review, March 2009: pg. 22.

—Theodore Hesburgh, American priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross, President Emeritus of the University of Notre Dame (1917–)

(1) “There is only one way in which one can endure man’s inhumanity to man and that is to try, in one’s own life, to exemplify man’s humanity to man.”

—Alan Paton, South African writer and educator (1903–1988)

Collocates to: activities, character, leadership, spirit, values, ways

(2) make or conduct an experiment

—Unknown

(1) Be prepared to finesse what we can do; we need to make some hard decisions.

(2) beat; make out of components

(3) move ahead or act with sudden increase in motion or speed

—John Kotter, former professor at the Harvard Business School and acclaimed author (1947–)

(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. “This Unserious White House,” Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2012: pg. A13.

(1) “We forge the chains we wear in life.”

—Charles Dickens, English writer and social critic (1812–1870)

(1) “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)

—Turner, Melissa. “Unrealized Dream: Summerhill’s Olympic Rebirth Started with Visions of a Mixed-income Community,” Atlanta Journal Constitution, January 14, 2001.

—Bower, Bruce. “Meet the Growbots,” Science News, Volume 179, Issue 3, January 29, 2011: pg. 18, 4 p.

(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: led, may, might, reasonable, researchers, therefore, we

—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 U.S. President (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. “Marketing,” Wall Street Journal, January 16, 2013: pg. B1.

—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

(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 VEO, 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. “Leadership Is a Conversation,” Harvard Business Review, June 2012: pg. 79.

(1) To listen is a communication skill and is very different from hearing, which is not a communication skill.

—Zach Wamp, former U.S. Representative for Tennessee’s 3rd Congressional district (1957–)

(1) “They rushed to move it forward, uh, and then a lawsuit was filed, and we spent many months litigating, rather than trying to come up with legislation and move forward on that front.”

—Tom Udall, senior U.S. Senator from New Mexico (1948–)

—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 an enterprise approach 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, Ernst & Young. Interaction to HBR, September 2012: pg. 18.

(1) “Offering ownership opportunities is still a great way to lure and motivate top-notch employees.”

—Caggiano, Christopher. “The Right Way to Pay,” Inc., Volume 24, Issue 12, November 2002: pg. 84.

Collocates to: ability, action, behavior, employee, factor, inspire, learn, students, teachers, ways

—Italie, Leanne. “New Book Takes Critical Look at Internships,” Domestic News, April 20, 2011.

Collocates to: air, aspect, culture, entire, every, must, seem, society, space

—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 because 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

(2) arrangement of strategic ideas in diagrams, charts, sketches, graphs, tables, maps, and other documents

(1) Having planned the sales meeting and organized all the activities demonstrates superb organization skills.

(1) “Planning will help you think in terms of laying down a foundation of the particular experiences you need to create a resume to move you into senior management.”

—Wellington, Shelia. Be Your Own Mentor, NY: Random House, 2001.

(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. Organizational Behavior, 12^th Ed., NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012.

(1) “In order to plan your future wisely, it is necessary that you understand and appreciate your past.”

—Jo Coudert, American author (1923–)

(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. “Fed’s Computer Models Pose Problems,” Wall Street Journal, December 31, 2012: pg. A3.

(2) influence favorable at once

(2) numerical expression or explanation

(3) determine or express or explain the quantity of, numerical measure of, or extent of

—Unknown

(2) think coherently and logically

(3) draw inference or conclusions from facts or assumptions

(4) argue or talk in a logical way

—Voltaire, French philosopher and writer (1694–1778)

(1) “As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.”

—James Madison, author of Federalist Papers, 4th U.S. President (1751–1836)

—Josh Billings, American humorist (1818–1885)

—Ted Conover, Book Review of True Blood, New York Times, April 18, 2004.

(2) confiscate; seize; take over

(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 Stevenson, Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, travel writer, and author of Tales and Fantasies (1850–1894)

—James Madison, American statesman and political theorist, 4th U.S. President, and author of The Federalist Papers (1751–1836)

—Peters, Kevin. “Office Depot’s President on How Mystery Shopping Helped Spark a Turnaround,” Harvard Business Review, November 2011: pg. 48.

(1) “Zhongxing Medical transformed the medical equipment business by focusing on direct digital radiography in a novel way.”

—Williamson, Peter and Ming Zeng. “Value-for-Money Strategies for Recessionary Times,” Harvard Business Review, March 2009: pg. 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. “Reinventing Your Business Model,” Harvard Business Review, December 2008: pg. 51.

(1) “In his lifetime, Steve Jobs transformed seven industries.”

—Isaacson, Walter. “The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs,” Harvard Business Review, April 2012: pg. 94.

—Reprint F0706D, Harvard Business Review, June 2007: pg. 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. Conversations for Creating Star Performers, NY: McGraw Hill, 2012: pg. 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. “The New Deal at the Top,” Harvard Business Review, June 2007: pg. 100.

—Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, social critic, and author of The Analysis of Mind (1872–1970)

(2) look upon with feelings of deep respect; regard as venerable

—Meichtry, Stacy and John Stroll. “Centuries Old Ritual to Choose Pope Begins,” Wall Street Journal, March 13, 2013.

(2) aim directly at

—Isaacson, Walter. “The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs,” Harvard Business Review, April 2012: pg. 94.