Michael Bungay Stanier > Quotes

“This is why, in a nutshell, advice is overrated. I can tell you something, and it’s got a limited chance of making its way into your brain’s hippocampus, the region that encodes memory. If I can ask you a question and you generate the answer yourself, the odds increase substantially.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“If this were a haiku rather than a book, it would read: Tell less and ask more. Your advice is not as good As you think it is.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“In his book Getting Things Done, David Allen shares a crucial insight: “You can’t do a project. You can only do the next step.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters.

“Five times a second, at an unconscious level, your brain is scanning the environment around you and asking itself: Is it safe here? Or is it dangerous?”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it’s the only one you’ve got,”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters.

“You have to help people do more of the work that has impact and meaning.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“Being busy is a form of laziness—lazy thinking and indiscriminate action”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in. LEONARD COHEN”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters.

“But the very nature of doing more Great Work means there will be times when you stumble, times you lose the path, times when you’re hacking through the jungle. You’ll ask yourself if this was the right path in the first place. As various military leaders have pointed out over the years, “No plan survives contact with the enemy.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters.

“People don’t really learn when you tell them something. They don’t even really learn when they do something. They start learning, start creating new neural pathways, only when they have a chance to recall and reflect on what just happened.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, End Malaria

“When all is said and done, a lot more is said than done. LOU HOLTZ”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters.

“help create the space for people to have those learning moments.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“When you build a coaching habit, you can more easily break out of three vicious circles that plague our workplaces: creating overdependence, getting overwhelmed and becoming disconnected.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“Don’t think of it as failure. Think of it as time-released success. ROBERT ORBEN”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters.

“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself. ANNA QUINDLEN”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters.

“Great work is about doing what's meaningful. Great work isn't about doing it well. Here’s the irony: It’s often easy to deliver Bad Work and Good Work at an excellent level. (Just how many times have you revised that worthless Power Point presentation?) And Great Work? It’s often new work at the edge of your competence, work that tangles you up because it’s different and you haven’t done it a thousand times before. You’re unlikely to be able to do it perfectly. When I say “Great Work,” I’m not talking about a standard of delivery. I’m talking about a standard of impact and meaning.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters.

“You are remembered for the rules you break. DOUGLAS MACARTHUR”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, Do More Great Work: Stop the Busywork. Start the Work That Matters.

“You want your people to feel that working with you is a place of reward, not risk.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“Michael Porter’s best, when he said, “The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“Coaching for performance is about addressing and fixing a specific problem or challenge. It’s putting out the fire or building up the fire or banking the fire. It’s everyday stuff, and it’s important and necessary. Coaching for development is about turning the focus from the issue to the person dealing with the issue, the person who’s managing the fire. This conversation is more rare and significantly more powerful.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“Self-Management If you can read just one book on motivation—yours and others: Dan Pink, Drive If you can read just one book on building new habits: Charles Duhigg, The Power of Habit If you can read just one book on harnessing neuroscience for personal change: Dan Siegel, Mindsight If you can read just one book on deep personal change: Lisa Lahey and Bob Kegan, Immunity to Change If you can read just one book on resilience: Seth Godin, The Dip Organizational Change If you can read just one book on how organizational change really works: Chip and Dan Heath, Switch”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“But a Yes is nothing without the No that gives it boundaries and form.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“Winston Churchill said that “we shape our buildings; and thereafter they shape us.” We live within our habits”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“though it accounts for only about 2 percent of your body weight, your brain uses about 20 percent of your energy.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“Coming up with ways to fix things feels more comfortable than sitting in the ambiguity of trying to figure out the challenge...”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“Your job as a manager and a leader is to help create the space for people to have those learning moments.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“Stop offering advice with a question mark attached. That doesn't count as asking a question”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

“Without a good question, a good answer has no place to go.”
― Michael Bungay Stanier, The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever