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.

People will envy you to the extent that you start out with a group of people and you rise up the organization faster than them. Get over what your peers are thinking about you because your peers are also your competitors.

People who don't have as much power as they would like often begin by attributing their difficulties to the environment - competitors, bosses, economic circumstances, and so forth. But in reality people are customarily their own biggest impediment to being as powerful as they would like.

To become "memorable" do things that are somewhat unexpected. Dress, or talk, in ways that draw attention. And mostly, don't follow all the "rule for behavior" so closely.

Authenticity seems like sort of a joke. Actually I believe it was the late comedian George Burns who said, "if you can fake sincerity, you've got it made." People cannot be invariant across situations and roles and, moreover, leaders need to be true not to themselves, but to what others want, need, and expect from them.

So, the three qualities of a workplace that would develop people would be information sharing, investing in the training of the workforce, and giving employees the ability to use their training and information to make decisions.

I don't think eliminating the knowing-doing gap depends on the amount of knowledge around. It depends much more on people's attitudes and intentions - do they actually want to turn knowledge into action, or just go through the motions of acting as if they are busy or are accomplishing something.