I agree it's not self-explanatory. All such pithy statements are only insightful based on hard-won experience behind them—the map is not the territory, after all ;)
As far as "strong opinions, weakly held", this is one of my favorites at work in a large scale product engineering environment. It goes beyond "mental liquidity" as described in the OA (which is really just about the "weakly held" part). The "strong opinions" part is that often times groups will succumb to analysis paralysis or unwillingness to make a decision due to group dynamics. Having a strong opinion (ideally backed by knowledge and expertise) is a way to push through and bring clarity. The risk is there is a personality type prone to blustering overconfidence that will push a group in a certain direction without reasonable justification. Ideally what you want is a critical mass of smart, decisive, but open-minded people who are quick to assimilate new evidence into their viewpoint.
As far as "strong opinions, weakly held", this is one of my favorites at work in a large scale product engineering environment. It goes beyond "mental liquidity" as described in the OA (which is really just about the "weakly held" part). The "strong opinions" part is that often times groups will succumb to analysis paralysis or unwillingness to make a decision due to group dynamics. Having a strong opinion (ideally backed by knowledge and expertise) is a way to push through and bring clarity. The risk is there is a personality type prone to blustering overconfidence that will push a group in a certain direction without reasonable justification. Ideally what you want is a critical mass of smart, decisive, but open-minded people who are quick to assimilate new evidence into their viewpoint.