Sunday, August 17, 2008

ACTIVATOR (Iniciador) quotations & proverbs

Please post your favorite quotes and proverbs with regard to the Activator talent!
Le gustarĂ­a escribir una cita o proverbio que hable sobre el talento Iniciador?

6 comments:

Matthias said...

"Power is the ability go get things done."

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, businesswoman and first female editor of the Harvard Business Review.

Matthias said...

A word of caution to people with Activator (which is in my Top 10):

"Every decision is like surgery. It is an intervention into a system and therefore carries with it the risk of shock. One does not make unnecessary decisions any more than a good surgeon does unnecessary surgery"

Peter Drucker in "The Effective Executive", p. 155

Post-scriptum: I am afraid there are more unncessary decisions as well as more unnecssary surgeries in real life!

Matthias said...

"I never lost an opportunity of urging a practical beginning, however small, for it is wonderful how often the mustard seed germinates and roots itself."

Florence Nightingale, nurse and philanthropist

Matthias said...

However, another word of caution seems appropriate here:

"One of the most obvious facts of social and political life is the longevity of the temporary. British licensing hours for taverns, for instance, French rent controls, or Washington "temporary" government buildings, all three hastly developed in World War I to last "a few months of temporary emergency" are still with us fifty years later. The effective decision maker knows this. He too improvises, of course. But he asks himself ever time "If I had to live with this for a long time, would I be willing to?" And if the answer is no, he keeps on working to find a more general, a more conceptual, a more comprehensive solution, one which establishes the right principle."

Peter Drucker in "The Effective Executive", p. 129

Partner with someone strong in Strategic, Deliberative, Intellection or Consistency if your Activator is "too strong" and you lack these compensating talents.

Matthias said...

“Are particular themes more suitable for managers?

No -- and yes. In our [= Gallup’s] research, we have found thousands of great managers whose Signature Themes differ quite a bit. However, we've also found that many successful managers have similar Signature Themes. For example, many possess Developer in their top five, and this enables them to spot small increments of growth in their employees. Other Signature Themes common to managers include: Focus, the ability to distinguish between a short cut and a distraction; Individualization, the ability to identify and play to the uniqueness of each employee; Activator, an unrelenting drive to make a decision and act; Arranger, the ability to size up the elements of a situation and rearrange them in the most productive configuration; and Maximizer, the natural inclination to take people or endeavors from good to great.”

Source: http://gmj.gallup.com/content/568/particular-themes-more-suitable-managers.aspx

Matthias said...

"Some of the smartest people that I've hired over the years - many of them from consulting - had real difficulty with edge, especially when they were put into operations. In every situation, they always saw too many options, which inhibited them from taking action. That indecisiveness kept their organizations in limbo. In the end, for several of them, that was a fatal flaw."

Jack Welch in "Winning", p. 86