Frank Partnoy > Quotes

“Yet we still don’t understand the role time and delay play in our decisions and why we continue to make all kinds of timing errors, reacting too fast or too slow. Delay alone can turn a good decision into a bad one, or vice versa. Much recent research about decisions helps us understand what we should do or how we should do it, but it says little about when. Sometimes we should trust our gut and respond instantly. But other times we should postpone our actions and decisions. Sometimes we should rely on our quick intuition. But other times we should plan and analyze.”
― Frank Partnoy, Wait: The Art and Science of Delay

“Because if you don't know how to manage time, time can rule you like a tyrant.”
― Frank Partnoy, Wait: The Useful Art of Procrastination

“During superfast reactions, the best-performing experts instinctively know when to pause, if only for a split-second. The same is true over longer periods: some of us are better at understanding when to take a few extra seconds to deliver the punch line of a joke, or when we should wait a full hour before making a judgment about another person. Part of this skill is gut instinct, and part of it is analytical.”
― Frank Partnoy, Wait: The Art and Science of Delay

“The dog on the cover of this book—let’s call her Maggie—is a role model for those of us who want to make better decisions. Maggie could have devoured the biscuit resting on her snout in the blink of an eye. Instead, she is holding back, showing us she can keep her instincts and emotions in check, delaying the pleasure of the snack she can smell all too well. Although this book is mostly about human beings, not animals, its central point is that we can learn a lot from Maggie.”
― Frank Partnoy, Wait: The Art and Science of Delay

“Psychologists have suggested we have two systems of thinking, one intuitive and one analytical, both of which can lead us to make serious cognitive mistakes.”
― Frank Partnoy, Wait: The Art and Science of Delay

“The essence of my case is this: given the fast pace of modern life, most of us tend to react too quickly. We don’t, or can’t, take enough time to think about the increasingly complex timing challenges we face. Technology surrounds us, speeding us up. We feel its crush every day, both at work and at home. Yet the best time managers are comfortable pausing for as long as necessary before they act, even in the face of the most pressing decisions. Some seem to slow down time. For good decision-makers, time is more flexible than a metronome or atomic clock.”
― Frank Partnoy, Wait: The Art and Science of Delay

“Ivar Kreuger became the face of the International Match scandal, but he should not have been the only target. Overeager investors, sloppy auditors, and pushover directors also bear much of the blame. Holders of Ivar's securities didn't demand more detailed information about his businesses. Ivar's auditors accepted his word as truth even when facts suggested otherwise. His directors did virtually nothing except cash their annual stipends.”
― Frank Partnoy, The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals

“On May 4, 1932 (...) the New York Times featured side-by-side front page stories on the world's two most infamous criminals. First, the paper reported that, late the previous evening, a police squad car had whisked Alphonse "Scarface" Capone from the Cook County Jail to the Dearborn Street station, where he and several government agents had boarded the Dixie Flyer, headed for Atlanta and the federal penitentiary there. The adjacent story described the first day of hearings before the federal referee overseeing the bankruptcy of International Match. "Glad to start, he says", was the tagline for the Capone column. the one about Ivar said "Trusted Him Implicitly".”
― Frank Partnoy, The Match King: Ivar Kreuger, The Financial Genius Behind a Century of Wall Street Scandals

“Children who have a wider range of instant heart response have a more efficient feedback system, and this increased efficiency helps them regulate their emotion state: their heart speed up more when they are excited, and slow down more when they are calm

Conscious contemplation takes at least half a second, so anyone who even tries to think about how to return a serve will end up endlessly watching the ball fly by.

Their goal is not necessarily to be first but to be just right.

An unwanted message might lead us to make a decision too quickly, even if we do not realize it.

The greatest comedians are masters of delay

most of us could become better communicators without changing a word we say - just by saying some of those words a little bit faster

The two most important elements of a relationship are chemistry and compatibility, and a photo won't help you with either

Time-based theory of conflict, derived from Sun Tzu, in which the crucial insights for a fighter come in stages: first, observe the rapidly changing environment; second, orient yourself based on these observations, process the disorder, and understand when and how your opponent might become confused; third, decide what to do; and finally, act quickly at just the right moment, when your opponent is most vulnerable.

active procrastination is smart: it simply means managing delay, putting of projects that really don't need to be done right away

passive procrastination is dumb, equivalent to laziness. This group says proscrastination might be a good or bad, depending on how much effort we put into it.”
― Frank Partnoy, Wait: The Art and Science of Delay

“The secret to understanding Citron was that ... "he knows thirty percent of what he thinks he knows”
― Frank Partnoy, Fiasco: The Inside Story of a Wall Street Trader