Nobody works better under pressure. They just work faster.

The better work men do is always done under stress and at great personal cost.

just because we’re busier doesn’t mean we’re getting more accomplished.

The only way to outperform if you’re doing undifferentiated work is to work harder than everyone else.

Working under tension is quite frustrating, to be honest, but it keeps me on my toes and my team active. Truthfully, sometimes tension brings out creative ideas and solutions to different problems and it is a constant part of the job so I’m getting used to it.

The relentless overload that’s wearing us down is generated by a belief that ‘good’ work requires increasing busyness — faster responses to email and chats, more meetings, more tasks, more hours.

They all have excellent resumes... So what I’m trying to find out is how they will behave under pressure.

Constantly trying to do more things — instead of the right things — leads to more stress, poorer quality of work, and lower productivity.

Time pressure narrows our focus on the task, restricting us from considering a number of more creative ways to complete it. We don’t question our approach as much, because we haven’t stepped back to consider the alternatives. This makes it easier to switch.

it's not just about pressure, but it's about dealing with pressure to perform your job in an unethical manner, to breach the code.

One of the clichéd human answers to stress and overwork is to increase your speed and your velocity…

The great tragedy of this approach is that you cannot recognize anything or anyone who is not traveling at the same velocity you are and you become a stranger to the slower, longer cycles of existence … and you find it hard to have compassion for anyone [at a slower pace] … you are afraid of stopping and they are reminding you that there is a part of the world that does periodically stops and takes a breath before it moves again. You don’t know who you’d be if you stopped and you get quite resentful … a kind of existential impatience and lack of generosity which comes from stressful approach to work.

They all have excellent resumes... So what I’m trying to find out is how they will behave under pressure. Will they lie, or bluff, or panic, or wilt? Or will they continue to function with some modicum of competence and integrity?

Working more doesn’t mean you care more or get more done. It just means you work more.

Another predictable result of leaving control of priorities to the pressures is that the work of top management does not get done at all. That is always postponable work, for it does not try to solve yesterday’s crises but to make a different tomorrow.