Morning Briefings

When obscurity pollutes someone’s communication, it’s often because the author’s goal is to impress and not to inform. The low road to impressing an audience is to make them feel inferior, by using words they won’t understand.

– Brian Fugere, Chelsea Hardaway, and Jon Warshawsky
Why Business People Speak Like Idiots: A Bullfighter’s Guide

The organizations behind the SAT and ACT college-entrance exams said Tuesday they are imposing stricter security measures for test-takers nationwide in response to a cheating scandal that erupted in New York.

– Will James, The Wall Street Journal
College Tests Get New ID Standards

I was a “silo Catholic,” you could say. Jesus was the man of Sunday, and I was the man the other six days of the week. There’s so much of this. I’m the last one to throw a stone at anyone, and so what I’m trying to do is share this journey with people.

– Andreas Widmer
from The National Catholic Register’s article Former Swiss Guard Owes Business Sense, and Faith, to John Paul II

I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an ‘honest man.’

– George Washington

Ethical behavior defines who you really are. If you believe in God, isn’t doing the right thing, honesty, accountability, transparency, humility and consistency all supposed to be our behavioral standard every day because He sees all?

– Mike Paul
The Reputation Doctor

I used to think I knew everything. I was a ’smart person’ who ‘got things done,’ and because of that, the higher I climbed, the more I could look down and scoff at what seemed silly or simple, even religion. But I realized something as I drove home that night: that I am neither better nor smarter, only luckier. And I should be ashamed of thinking I knew everything, because you can know the whole world and still be lost in it.

– Mitch Albom
Have a Little Faith

There is a big difference between an image and a reputation. An image is usually short term and can be an illusion. Public images are often fabricated and untrue. A reputation is what you actually are (both good and bad) and is built on a foundation of truth.

– Mike Paul, Top Ten Reputation Management Tips for 2009 from
Reputation Doctor blog

For if a man will betray God, he will surely betray man!

– Gereon Goldmann
The Shadow of His Wings

God hates cheating in the marketplace; he loves it when business is aboveboard.

– Eugene H. Peterson on Proverbs 11:1
The Message

Dealing with change ultimately makes you confront one thing: Dishonesty. And dishonesty- -intellectual dishonesty, decision making dishonesty, not-willing-to-face-the-music dishonesty–is the greatest enemy that a company can have. We disguise it as waiting to get more information or looking for more input.

– Seth Godin
Small is the New Big