I am increasingly convinced that people who have power are not necessarily smarter than others. Beyond a certain level of intelligence and level in the hierarchy, everyone is smart. What differentiates people is their political skill and savvy.

Possibly the biggest issue, however, is that performance appraisals focus managers attention on precisely the wrong thing: individual people. As W. Edwards Deming, the father of the quality movement, taught a long time ago, company performance often results more from variations in systems than from the individuals doing the work.

I would give Obama a "C." He gets an "A" for understanding this country's profound problems in education, health care, infrastructure, and economic competitiveness, and for surrounding himself with extremely skilled and knowledgeable people who know what to do. He probably gets an "F," ironically, in his ability to sell these ideas to the American public and to be angry enough, conniving enough, and frankly mean enough to get them implemented and understood.

In any branding strategy, you need to figure out what is the image you want to project. Then behave accordingly. And above all, cultivate the media and those who will help you burnish your reputation.

Your most important task as a leader is to teach people how to think and ask the right questions so that the world doesn't go to hell if you take a day off.

To paraphrase the late management thinker and writer, Peter Drucker, thinking is hard work, which is why so few people (including actually senior managers) do it. Once there is some "conventional," seemingly-reasonable story, people just accept it and don't ask, "is this actually true? Is it consistent with the data?" And this extends to the highest reaches of organizational life.

You can't be normal and expect abnormal returns.