Kim Scott

It’s natural to crave a little control. But power and control are illusory and won’t get you where you really want to go. Relationships are more effective, and more satisfying.

Authority derives naturally from merit, not the other way around.”

The way you treat people determines whether you’ll get their best effort, a perfunctory effort, or an effort to sabotage you. When you treat people like cogs in a machine, you’ll get no more than you demand, and you create an incentive to break the machine.

Shona Brown, who wrote Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos

Think about it—whether it’s the gay man forced to weather anti-gay jokes or the conservative forced to weather anti-conservative jokes, the result is the same—some part of them is negated, and they can’t help feeling alienated, not free at work.
That’s why it’s crucial to remind people that an important part of Radically Candid relationships is opening yourself to the possibility of connecting with people who have different worldviews or whose lives involve behavior that you don’t understand or that may even conflict with a core belief of yours

much-loved Silicon Valley coach Bill Campbell

To show that you “care personally” with your hugs, you have to obey the “platinum rule.” The “golden rule” says do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. The “platinum rule” says, figure out what makes the other person comfortable, and do that. If most people on your team are comfortable with hugs but a couple are not, you need to figure out a way to make sure that they don’t feel excluded from all those hugs they don’t want. Use your words!)

If you have a truly terrible emotional upset in your life, stay home for a day. You don’t want to spread it around any more than you’d want to spread a bad virus around the office, and emotions are just as contagious as germs. Mental-health days should be taken more seriously than they are

Keep some closed bottles of water at your desk. Another good piece of advice I heard from an HR business partner was to have some unopened bottles of water at hand. If you see that somebody is getting upset, offer a bottle of water. Often, the simple pause to unscrew the top and take a sip of water is enough to help the person feel calmer. If you are a crier, you can use the bottle of water

CEO coach, Leslie Koch