Explore our daily curated quotes. Each day features a carefully selected quote to inspire and enlighten.
"The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does"
Daily Insight
Notice the word orders. Not “advice.” Not “guidance.” Orders are crisp, final, and conveniently transferable. They move responsibility down the org chart while keeping authority intact. That’s why Herbert Prochnow’s line lands with such bite: “The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does.”
We’re trained to admire the spotless record, the person who “never drops a ball.” But a life without mistakes can be less a sign of excellence and more a sign of insulation. If you never choose the route, you also never face the consequences of choosing wrong. Errorlessness often comes from operating in safe lanes: executing well-defined tasks, waiting for approvals, and optimizing for not getting blamed.
Prochnow is quietly defending fallibility as evidence of agency. Mistakes are what happens when you make calls: when you propose a new approach, give feedback that might sting, ship a draft that isn’t perfect, or lead a meeting instead of hiding in the notes. If you want more leadership, you have to accept the price of making real decisions, some of which won’t work.
The application is simple: stop treating “never wrong” as the goal. Aim to be responsibly wrong in the service of learning. Build a small system: decide, act, review. Make the call, document the reasoning, then adjust without drama. That’s how courage looks in the workplace and in your personal life, quiet, repeatable, and a little exposed.
As a banker and writer, Herbert Prochnow became known for practical wisdom on meetings, public speaking, and management, fields where clarity and decision-making matter more than perfection.
Today, pick one place you’ve been “waiting for orders”, a conversation you’re postponing, a proposal you’re over-polishing, a decision you keep delegating upward, and take a single step without asking permission: send the draft, schedule the talk, make the recommendation with one clear reason. May you choose the kind of work that leaves fingerprints, not just a clean record.
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