Matthew Syed
Bounce – Mozart, Federer, Picasso, Beckham and the Science of Success , (p. 142), HarperCollins, 2010
Enron recruited big talent, mostly people with fancy degrees, which is not in itself bad. It paid them big money, which is not terrible. But by putting complete faith in talent, Enron did a fatal thing; it created a culture that worshipped talent, thereby forcing its employees to look and act extraordinarily talented.

Basically, it forced them into the fixed mindset. And we know a lot about that. We know that people with the fixed mindset do not admit and correct their deficiencies.

Ezekiel 28:4-8
The Message
Look, you think you’re smarter than Daniel.
No enigmas can stump you.
Your sharp intelligence
made you world-wealthy.
You piled up gold and silver
in your banks.
You used your head well,
worked good deals, made a lot of money.
But the money has gone to your head,
swelled your head—what a big head!

“‘Therefore, God, the Master, says:

“‘Because you’re acting like a god,
pretending to be a god,
I’m giving fair warning: I’m bringing strangers down on you,
the most vicious of all nations.
They’ll pull their swords and make hash
of your reputation for knowing it all.
They’ll puncture the balloon
of your god-pretensions.
They’ll bring you down from your self-made pedestal
and bury you in the deep blue sea.

Bradford D. Smart, Ph.D.
Topgrading – How Leading Companies Win by Hiring, Coaching and Keeping the Best People , (p. 79), Prentice Hall, Inc., 2005
You, the hiring manager, meet the candidates, perhaps for lunch, explain what the job needs are, ask a few questions about their experience and interests, sell the job a bit, and respond to questions. If it looks like a mutual “go” for one or more finalists, your assistant organizes a day of interviews with some key members of your team. Current practice for “organizing” the interview sequence is like a fourth-grade fire drill. On the day of the interviews, two scheduled interviewers have crises to address, and so substitutes are thrown in at the last minute. The candidate is asked to be flexible, interviewing with a partial group. Most interviewers are ill-prepared, fumbling through candidate résumés for the first time –”uh … tell me about yourself.” Interviewees consider this day a hodgepodge of redundant, superficial, shallow interviews. But it’s typical.

Proverbs 26:10
The New American Standard Bible
Like an archer who wounds everyone,
So is he who hires a fool or who hires those who pass by.

Peter Arnell
Shift – How to reinvent your business, your career, and your personal brand , (p. 32), Broadway Books, 2010
You have to find the inner truth about the message of your product. To gain the loyalty and trust of consumers, your message — conveyed through advertising or marketing — has to be authentic. It has to be simple and boiled down to its essence. This is especially important in a marketplace where dozens of different brands for the same product are competing for attention.

II Corinthians 11:3
New American Standard Bible
But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.

Henry Mintzberg, Bruce Ahlstrand, Joseph Lampel
Strategy Bites Back – It Is Far More and Less, Than You Ever Imagined , (p. 71), Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005
…the leader creates the combination of optimism and action that allows people to turn their confusion into meaning and find their way home.

Acts 19:32
The New International Version
The assembly was in confusion: Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people did not even know why they were there.

Nouriel Roubini and Stephen Mihm
Crisis Economics: A Crash Course in the Future of Finance , (p. 266-267), The Penguin Press, 2010
Financial crises disappeared only after the Great Depression, a period that coincided with the rise of the United States as a global superpower. At the same time the U.S. government reined in financial institutions with legislation like the Glass-Steagall Act and shored them up by creating agencies like the SEC and FDIC. The dollar became the ballast of an extraordinarily stable international monetary system, and crises came to seem like things of the past. Though serious cracks started to appear in the facade after the 1970s, economists in developed nations kept the faith, worshipping at the altar of the Great Moderation.

The recent cataclysm marks the beginning of the end of this dangerous illusion. It also marks the end of the financial stability ushered in by the Pax Americana. As American power erodes in the coming years, crises may become more frequent and virulent, absent a strong superpower that can cooperate with other emerging powers to bring the same stability to the global economy. Far from being a once-in-a-century event, the recent financial disaster may be a taste of things to come.

A new era demands new ways of thinking. We should jettison bankrupt ideas about the inherent stability, efficiency, and resilience of unregulated markets, and we should let crises take their own rightful place in economics and finance. Sadly, many otherwise intelligent people cling to the belief that the recent crisis was an unpredictable, unheralded event. No one could have seen it coming, they say, and we’ll never see the likes of it again — at least not in our lifetimes.

We can wait for a new financial calamity to deal a coup de grace to this continuing complacency. Or we can embrace understanding a new economics: crisis economics.

Jeremiah 17:7-8
The New International Version
⁷ “But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose confidence is in him.

⁸ He will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit.”

Gordon MacDonald
Restoring Your Spiritual Passion , (p. 48), Oliver-Nelson Books, 1986
…one who is dried out has reached that state by not taking anything into the inner chambers of life for quite some time…

The unfilled spiritual tank is an invitation to disaster, and many of us have known that awful moment when, like a car out of gas, we seem to cough and sputter and pull over to the shoulder, out of service, not able to go any further.

We have all seen the car out of gas in a long tunnel or on a narrow bridge at rush hour. Thousands of people are potentially affected in the clogged-up mess that follows. And it can happen in spiritual life also. One empty spiritual tank can affect a score of other people. It’s happened more than once.

Like many others, I am no stranger to the dried-out condition. This condition is often a danger for the multi-gifted person, one who has many differing gifts and capacities and who can appear to go for long periods, as they say, winging it.

Those with natural talents, like musicians, are quite vulnerable here. They can mistake the applause of the admiring crowds for God’s blessing. Thinking that their ability to raise the emotions of people in an artistic setting is the same as being a tool in the hand of God, they begin to abandon any sense of need for spiritual passion or energy and move ahead on their own instincts. More often, what power they appear to have is sheer theatrics, not spiritual passion. Often the system seems to work for a long time, and then — disaster.

Psalm 63:1
The New International Version
O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water

J.I. Packer
Freedom and Authority , (p. 13), International Council on Biblical Inerrancy, 1981
One aspect of this freedom is integrity, that simplicity and purity of heart which, as Kierkegaard analyzed it, consists in willing one thing, namely the will and glory of God, so that one’s motives are freed from the taint of self-regard. A second aspect is spontaneity. Unlike the rule-ridden Pharisees, whom Jesus pictured living (as it were) by numbers, the free person in Christ invests creative enterprise and resourcefulness in the task of pleasing and praising God and doing good to one’s fellows. Where the Pharisee’s concern is to avoid doing wrong, the free person seeks to make the most and best of every situation, so that he is lively and sometimes breath-taking company. A final aspect is contentment, the fruit of God’s gift of a joy within that increases all life’s pleasures, stays with him whatever is present or lacking in his outward circumstances, and enables him to accept without bitterness the most acute forms of suffering and pain. In short, this person is free for holiness, humanness and happiness — a freedom which surely merits its name.

I Peter 2:16
The New International Version
Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.