People clearly want to believe that the world is a just and fair place. It provides them a sense of control and makes them psychologically comfortable. But believing that the world is a just and fair place causes people to not do enough to take care of themselves and to be unprepared for when it isn't so nice. So, people need to understand their tendencies to see the world as just and fair and then be realistic about the actual conditions in which they find themselves.

Great strategy, not executed, can't possibly have any effect on performance because it doesn't actually affect anything. It's like planning for a successful surgery to remove a tumor. If no one picks up the knife and actually operates effectively, the diseases will persist.

All of Robert Caro's biographies are exceptional, in part because of Caro's fundamental ambivalence about power. He sees its necessity and use for getting things done, even as he is often repelled by watching power at close range. His masterpiece on Robert Moses, The Power Broker, describes the evolution of Moses from idealist to pragmatist as he became one of the most powerful figures in the 20th century.

Consider the many financial industry executives who walked away with many millions as their organizations failed - I think the expression is "failing upward." People also need to understand that their "technical" job performance is correlated with their career success, but again, many other factors such as educational credentials, length of service, and yes, political skills, also contribute to success. So people need to understand business and technical issues but they also need to master organizational dynamics.

Typical pay increases are not enough to motivate employees, but they are enough to irritate them. … Even when companies create seemingly significant pay differentiation between low and high performers, the actual cash increase is insufficient to sustain performance – or it drives the wrong behaviors. … Effective management is a system, not a pay plan. The mistake is that companies try to solve all their problems with pay.

People clearly want to believe that the world is a just and fair place. It provides them a sense of control and makes them psychologically comfortable. But believing that the world is a just and fair place causes people to not do enough to take care of themselves and to be unprepared for when it isn't so nice. So, people need to understand their tendencies to see the world as just and fair and then be realistic about the actual conditions in which they find themselves.

Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals is instructive in painting a realistic portrayal of Lincoln and his methods for accomplishing his objectives. In fact, many good political biographies are useful in learning about power, strategy, and decision-making.