Margaret Heffernan Quotes

When we care about people, we care less about money, and when we care about money, we care less about people.

~ Margaret Heffernan

Money is just one of the forces that blind us to information and issues which we could pay attention to - but don't. It exacerbates and often rewards all the other drivers of willful blindness; our preference for the familiar, our love for individuals and for big ideas, a love of busyness and our dislike of conflict and change, the human instinct to obey and conform and our skill at displacing and diffusing responsibility. All of these operate and collaborate with varying intensities at different moments in our lives. The common denominator is that they all make us protect our sense of self-worth, reducing dissonance and conferring a sense of security, however illusory. In some ways, they all act like money; making us feel good at first, with consequences we don't see. We wouldn't be so blind if our blindness didn't deliver rewards; the benefit of comfort and ease.

~ Margaret Heffernan

In treating people as less important than things, work becomes both demoralised and demoralising and we become blind to the moral content of our decisions...Money and wilfful blindness make us act in ways incompatible wiht what believe our ethics to be, and often even with our own self-interest...the problem with money isn't fundamentally about greed, although it can be comforting to think so. The problem with money is that we live in societies in which mutual support and co-operation is essential, but money erodes the relationships we need to lead productive, fulfilling and genuinely happy lives. When money becomes the dominant behavior, it doesn't cooperate with, or amplify, our relationships; it disengages us from them.

~ Margaret Heffernan

You cannot fix a problem that you refuse to acknowledge.

~ Margaret Heffernan

according to the psychologist irving Janis, is that our sense of belonging (which makes us feel safe) blinds us to dangers and encourages greater risk-taking.

~ Margaret Heffernan

The combination of power, optimism and abstract thinking makes powerful people more certain. The more cut-off they are from others, the more confident they are that they are right.

~ Margaret Heffernan

Companies are bought for their revenue, customer base, technology, or people. A few great companies offer all of these, but any valuable business offers one.

~ Margaret Heffernan

All businesses and jobs depend on a vast number of people, often unnoticed and unthanked, without which nothing really gets done. They are all human and deserve respect and gratitude.

~ Margaret Heffernan

In our house, Mother's Day is every day. Father's Day, too. In our house, parents count. They do important work and that work matters. One day just doesn't cut for us.

~ Margaret Heffernan

Speaking is what most people work on. They forget the thinking and the breathing and instead try to occupy space with sound.

~ Margaret Heffernan

Everywhere I look, there are ads marking Mother's Day. Mostly they conform to stereotype: flowers, jewelry, perfume. Not a lot of books. Not many computers. Few tools. Little that's useful.

~ Margaret Heffernan

Britain is famous for being great at inventing and poor at commercializing.

~ Margaret Heffernan

For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate.

~ Margaret Heffernan

One of the sad truths about leadership is that, the higher up the ladder you travel, the less you know.

~ Margaret Heffernan

Making those around you feel invisible is the opposite of leadership.

~ Margaret Heffernan

I'm all for ambition and stretch goals. I set them for myself. But leadership isn't the same as cheerleading. Believing in something is a necessary but absolutely insufficient condition for making it come true.

~ Margaret Heffernan

The medical profession is - and knows itself to be - endemically conservative and conformist.

~ Margaret Heffernan

The truth won't set us free - until we develop the skills and the habit and the talent and the moral courage to use it.

~ Margaret Heffernan

A great deal of creativity is about pattern recognition, and what you need to discern patterns is tons of data. Your mind collects that data by taking note of random details and anomalies easily seen every day: quirks and changes that, eventually, add up to insights.

~ Margaret Heffernan

British innovation in design, in the creative arts, in engineering and manufacturing is world class.

~ Margaret Heffernan

When you use words loosely, without care and consideration, you erode trust in yourself and in what you're saying. When you squander words, you diminish your power.

~ Margaret Heffernan