Time & Perspective Quote by Bill Kurtis

Management culture isn’t built out of mission statements; it’s built out of the tiny moments when someone could get away with something. Bill Kurtis, a journalist who made a career out of narrating consequences with a steady voice, understands leadership as a kind of ongoing broadcast: every decision is a signal, and the audience is always taking notes.

The line’s power is its blunt mechanism. “Set the standard” frames authority less as charisma and more as calibration. Kurtis is really talking about drift: the almost invisible slide from “exception” to “precedent.” The phrase “we’ll let it go this time” is the villain here because it sounds humane, flexible, even reasonable. He’s warning that leniency is rarely interpreted as mercy in organizations; it’s interpreted as a rule change. Subtext: people don’t just follow what you announce, they follow what you tolerate.

There’s also a journalist’s logic to it: credibility is cumulative and fragile. Once you narrate an exception, you’ve rewritten the story of what counts. That’s why he insists “you cannot do that” with almost moral finality. It’s not anti-compassion so much as anti-ambiguity.

Context matters, too. Kurtis comes from a world of deadlines, standards, and public trust - environments where small lapses compound into reputational damage. His warning fits today’s workplace reality: culture is not what leaders intend; it’s what they permit, especially when it’s inconvenient to enforce.