If you managed a baseball team, would you listen more closely to the team accountant or the director of player personnel?

Shareholder value is the result of you doing a great job, watching your share price go up, your shareholders win, and dividends increasing. What happens when you have increasing shareholder value? You're delivering better employees to their communities and they can give back. Communities are winning because employees are involved in mentoring and all these other things. Customers are winning because you're providing them new products.

Be candid with everyone.

Don't make the process harder than it is.

Your goal, in other words, should be to make your bosses smarter, your team more effective, and the whole company more competitive because of your energy, creativity, and insights.

Nothing is worse than the person in their 40s who says, 'I'm not going to learn this.' 'I don't carry an iPad.' That will label you and put you right in the corner. Some people do it as a badge of honor. I've seen them myself, they walk around bragging [about not knowing much about technology].

The team with the best players usually does win - this is why you need to invest the majority of your time and energy in developing your people.