"I never use notes, they interfere with me"
About this Quote
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 |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Blanchard, Ken. (2026, January 16). I never use notes, they interfere with me. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-never-use-notes-they-interfere-with-me-103427/
Chicago Style
Blanchard, Ken. "I never use notes, they interfere with me." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-never-use-notes-they-interfere-with-me-103427/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"I never use notes, they interfere with me." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/i-never-use-notes-they-interfere-with-me-103427/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.



