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.

Part of strategy is figuring out what you're good at, figuring out what you're not good at, and then getting yourself in position to succeed by doing mostly what you have a competitive advantage doing.

Successful organizations understand the importance of implementation, not just strategy, and, moreover, recognize the crucial role of their people in this process.

I am not sure any of the material in Leadership BS would be helpful for small companies and certainly not their owners. Of course, even owners have bosses and need to worry about keeping their jobs - so Power might be more appropriate.

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.

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.

I completely reject the idea that working adults need to be treated like infants or worse and not told the realities, harsh or not, about the world of work. Keeping people in the dark and filling them with stories that are either mostly fabricated, unusually rare, or both, doesn't do anyone any good. It is one of the reasons that workplaces and careers remain in such dire straits.