Business Aphorisms: Are They Actually True?

Episode 253 – Show Notes

Sacha starts the episode emotionally compromised.

Why?

Her headphones — her emotional support headphones — fell into the moat outside her front door.

Yes. There is a moat.

Once the mourning period passes, Ish and Sacha get into the real topic of the episode: business aphorisms — those short, punchy sayings that everyone repeats as if they’re universal truths.

But are they?

They unpack some of the most common ones you hear in leadership and business conversations:

• People don’t quit jobs, they quit bosses – Sometimes true… sometimes it’s actually the team, the role, or even the employee themselves. 
• Culture eats strategy for breakfast – Powerful idea, but even great cultures can fail if they ignore changing markets. 
• Hire slow, fire fast – Sounds great. But in reality, most businesses do the opposite. 
• What gets measured gets managed – Numbers matter… but numbers can also tell wildly different stories. 
• Hire for attitude, train for skill – Usually true… unless you’re hiring a surgeon or a pilot. 

Along the way, they talk about regrettable employees, silent quitting, broken dashboards, terrible interview processes, and the surprising truth that sometimes we’re all just making sense of the numbers after the fact.

Plus:
 Papua New Guinea fuel gauges, elevated scones, and why interviews might be one of the most flawed hiring tools we still use.

And of course, the most important leadership aphorism of the day:

Dry headphones are better than wet headphones.

If you haven’t come across it yet, Working Genius is one of the simplest, most practical models I’ve seen for helping teams understand how they actually get work done. Not personality. Not fluff. Just clarity on where people thrive — and where they get frustrated.

 If you’re planning your next team day, offsite, or work event, I’d love to bring this to your crew. 

Find out more at IshCheyne.com