"I never use notes, they interfere with me"
About this Quote
The bravado in "I never use notes, they interfere with me" isn’t really about stationery; it’s about control. Ken Blanchard, a business author who built a brand on digestible leadership parables, signals a preference for presence over precision. Notes are framed as an obstacle, not a support system, turning preparation into something almost intrusive - a prop that would dilute the human connection he’s selling.
The line works because it smuggles in a philosophy of leadership communication: the best message is embodied, not recited. In the corporate-speaking ecosystem, spontaneity reads as authenticity, and authenticity reads as authority. Blanchard is performing ease. He’s saying, I know this material so well it lives in me, and I trust myself to meet the room. That’s a powerful pose in an industry where executives are coached to sound "natural" while delivering meticulously engineered talking points.
The subtext is also a quiet rebuke to bureaucratic overdocumentation: binders, scripts, decks, minutes. Notes represent the organization’s demand to pin everything down; Blanchard casts that as friction against judgment, intuition, and rapport. It’s an argument for leadership as a relational act, not an archival one.
Still, the sentence carries a calculated risk: romanticizing improvisation can blur into anti-intellectualism, the idea that preparation is optional if your personality is strong enough. Blanchard’s charisma-forward stance flatters audiences who want wisdom without scaffolding - the promise that clarity is something you can simply step into.
The line works because it smuggles in a philosophy of leadership communication: the best message is embodied, not recited. In the corporate-speaking ecosystem, spontaneity reads as authenticity, and authenticity reads as authority. Blanchard is performing ease. He’s saying, I know this material so well it lives in me, and I trust myself to meet the room. That’s a powerful pose in an industry where executives are coached to sound "natural" while delivering meticulously engineered talking points.
The subtext is also a quiet rebuke to bureaucratic overdocumentation: binders, scripts, decks, minutes. Notes represent the organization’s demand to pin everything down; Blanchard casts that as friction against judgment, intuition, and rapport. It’s an argument for leadership as a relational act, not an archival one.
Still, the sentence carries a calculated risk: romanticizing improvisation can blur into anti-intellectualism, the idea that preparation is optional if your personality is strong enough. Blanchard’s charisma-forward stance flatters audiences who want wisdom without scaffolding - the promise that clarity is something you can simply step into.
Quote Details
| Topic | Leadership |
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