The silver lining of this pandemic in the last couple of years is we have realised that culture is not relegated to an office, it's agnostic of a physical office. It is how we work with each other.
— Melissa Daimler“As soon as you get close to this thing we need to heal, the anxiety comes up to try to pull us away as it did when we were a child, and that's why anxiety is so hard to heal. Because as soon as you get close to it, you want to pull away.”— Dr. Russell Kennedy
The quote archive
Wisdom in fragments
A growing archive of 3,000+ moments, drawn from every interview.
I don't think culture is the bean bag or the Ping-Pong tables or the free food or the happy hours. Those are great opportunities to connect as individuals and have a little fun, but I do not think those things define what a culture really is.
— Melissa DaimlerCulture is much bigger than that. Culture goes beyond values. I define culture is three primary parts. The first part is behaviour. It's the behaviours of your employees that get embedded into all the processes we are already doing. The second part is processes. The third piece is practices.
— Melissa DaimlerYou have to make decisions throughout your life and be prepared to accept responsibility for those decisions. There is also confidence that comes from learning a set of skills – and that confidence allows you to challenge the status quo.
— Reggie Fils-AiméFormer President of Nintendo of America, led iconic console era
I took the fact that I felt I wasn't good enough as a challenge. This is where I give some of my early bosses and mentors a lot of credit. They invested their time in my training and development.
— Reggie Fils-AiméFormer President of Nintendo of America, led iconic console era
He had the grit and determination to go, to tell that story, and to tell the world what was happening. His experience shaped me – and shaped my own mentality of being tough, resilient, picking myself up from disappointments, and continuing to move forward.
— Reggie Fils-AiméFormer President of Nintendo of America, led iconic console era
Innovative companies are not afraid of failure – they're willing to take risks, fail forward, learn from missteps, pivot, and keep going.
— Reggie Fils-AiméFormer President of Nintendo of America, led iconic console era
Innovation is a skill, a teachable skill, just like management. If you focus on a handful of key principles, you can effectively drive innovation in any type of business.
— Reggie Fils-AiméFormer President of Nintendo of America, led iconic console era
Education exponentially multiplies advancements in every other sector. And critically, it empowers communities with the skills to shape their own futures, build their own economies, and advocate for their own rights.
— Nadia MuradNobel Peace Prize Winner & Yazidi Genocide Survivor Advocate
Empowering women to be decision-makers in their families and communities makes everyone safer, more successful, healthier, and more educated.
— Nadia MuradNobel Peace Prize Winner & Yazidi Genocide Survivor Advocate
The truth is that stable societies are built on the backs of women. Attacking women has a crippling impact on communities.
— Nadia MuradNobel Peace Prize Winner & Yazidi Genocide Survivor Advocate
Rape is one of the oldest weapons of war and it remains so to this day. For so long, it has been viewed as an 'unfortunate' side effect of war. But really, it is a tactic.
— Nadia MuradNobel Peace Prize Winner & Yazidi Genocide Survivor Advocate
Beyond the atrocities of mass murder and rape, ISIS also set out to systematically destroy the Yazidi community by ensuring that we did not have the resources to survive in our homeland. They poisoned wells, burned farms, took out electrical grids, and destroyed schools, homes, temples, and hospitals.
— Nadia MuradNobel Peace Prize Winner & Yazidi Genocide Survivor Advocate
Philanthropy is very much like business, there's not such a huge difference. In business you have a mission statement, in philanthropy you have a vision. I believe in philanthropy we want to do things that give back as much as we give, otherwise it doesn't have permanence.
— Dame Stephanie ShirleyPioneering Software Engineer & Founder of Freelance Programmers Ltd
I lived the change. My company was a way of, as they say, 'scratching my own itch.' I wanted to be able to go on working myself, and I realised that a lot of other women would have had comparable aims and desires.
— Dame Stephanie ShirleyPioneering Software Engineer & Founder of Freelance Programmers Ltd
For me, success is about harmony, and it has several dimensions. The classic three; intellectual, physical, and spiritual – when those three are in harmony, I feel my life is a success. Money isn't really a part of that.
— Dame Stephanie ShirleyPioneering Software Engineer & Founder of Freelance Programmers Ltd