How to work better

From Peter Fischli and David Weiss.

  1. Do one thing at a time
  2. Know the problem
  3. Learn to listen
  4. Learn to ask questions
  5. Distinguish sense from nonsense
  6. Accept change as inevitable
  7. Admit mistakes
  8. Say it simple
  9. Be calm
  10. Smile

These feel like good principles for all sorts of work, especially work that involves other people.

Apparently the artists appropriated this from a sign in a factory in Thailand in the 1980s. Later they painted it on an office building in Zurich and then opposite a factory in Lower Manhattan.

‘How to work better’ (1991) by Peter Fischli and David Weiss. (Photograph by Jason Wyche.)

· ways of working, culture, collaboration, team work