You are more likely to acquire power by narrowing your focus and applying your energies, like the sun's rays, to a limited range of activities in a small number of domains.

Point at solutions instead of at each other.

Today, if the CEO thinks it's a good idea, it's done everywhere; if the CEO thinks it's a bad idea, it's done nowhere. We ought to be more agnostic and open to learning things that we didn't expect - and the only way to do that is to try things and be open-minded about how well they are working. And third, evidence-based management involves reading and learning - just like doctors do - and to do so not just in school but afterward, as well.

The class focuses intensely on making people more comfortable with doing a wider range of things - such as networking, self-promotion, building their own personal brand, cleverly acquiring resources, getting known - that they may have been less comfortable with before.

Knowledge is only useful if you do something with it.

Many companies believe incentives, financial incentives, are the answer to every problem or issue. But people are motivated by much more than money. In particular, people like to feel good about themselves and maintain their self-esteem. If companies spent more time working on people's feelings of self-worth, they wouldn't have to try, often unsuccessfully, to bribe people to do work.

Doing the right thing is important, which is where strategy comes in. But doing that thing well—execution—is what sets companies apart. After all, every football play is designed to go for a huge gain. The reason it doesn’t is because of execution—people drop balls, miss blocks, go to the wrong place, and so forth. So, success depends on execution—on the ability to get things done.