Robert Fritz Quotes

Secondary choices are always subordinate to a primary choice. Often there is no reason to make such choices outside the context of the primary choice that calls for them.

Athletes and musicians may not enjoy practicing long hours, but they do so just the same; not out of duty, obligation, or any other form of self-manipulation, but because they are making secondary choices consistent with their primary choice to be able to perform music or excel at sports.

What motivates a creator? The desire for the creation to exist. A creator creates in order to bring the creation into being. People in the reactive-responsive orientation often have trouble understanding this sensibility: to create for the sake of the creation itself. Not for the praise, not for the “return on investment,” not for what it may say about you, but for its own sake.

"What motivates a creator? The desire for the creation to exist. A creator creates in order to bring the creation into being. People in the reactive-responsive orientation often have trouble understanding this sensibility: to create for the sake of the creation itself. Not for the praise, not for the "return on investment," not for what it may say about you, *but for its own sake.*
Poet Robert Frost captured the spirit of the orientation of the creative when he said:
"All the great things are done for their own sake."
...
When you separate yourself from your creations, you can experience one of the most profound understandings of creativity - love. *The reason you would create anything is because you love it enough to see it exist.*"

In the creative process you do not make choices about what you do not want. You make choices about what you do want.

There’s nothing like surrounding yourself with people who actually like you just the way you are–people who are not trying to improve you, change you, manipulate you, save you, etc. There is a line. On one side of the line are those who will give you the news–good, bad, and indifferent. They care about you and your success. On the other side of the line are those who do not actually care about you and have motives other than true support.

We don’t make art because we need it. We make it because we love it. The love artists have is generative, not responsive. Romantic love is responsive. You meet and then you fall in love. The situation first, the love second. But for the artist, the love predates the situation. The filmmaker loves the film before the film is made. The painter loves the painting before paint touches canvas. The choreographer loves the dance before it exists. To do what we need to do is not special. After all, we need to do it. But to do what we do not need to do is special. To the artist, to make art is one of the most special things one can do in life.

The FIRST Law of Organizational Structure Organizations either oscillate or advance. This distinction is truly as black and white as it sounds. An organization is predominately one that advances or one that oscillates. When any type of action (TQM, organizational learning, reengineering, lean, you name it), occurs in an organization structured to advance, it has an entirely different impact than it would in an organization structured to oscillate. In the first, actions actually work; in the second, they don’t. In both types of organizations there are instances of success. In fact, every organization is filled with plenty of successes. But the consequences of success in an advancing organization are radically different from an oscillating organization. In structural advancement, success ultimately leads to long-term success; you can build on it, you can grow other successes, you can create momentum, energy and drive; in organizations in which structural oscillation is in play, success is neutralized.