It is so easy to "calibrate" -that is, given the pressures on a smaller company to redefine in less ambitious terms- that which you are in business to accomplish. The moment this happens the downward spiral begins.

When your people have determined that you understand their lies in their hearts and are dedicated to their functional wellbeing, they will compensate for your weaknesses and shore up your strengths.

Survival in the demand economy depends on and requires experimentation, risk taking, and trial and error.

True buoyant leaders can never communicate in percentage points, or charts and figures. First and foremost, they must be storytellers, communicating with their hearts, not heads.

What can be seeds of destruction can also be seeds of greatness.

Maintaining patience, being generous, and helping your peers takes time, and no small amount of emotional fortitude. But it brings an exponential difference in your team's ability to problem-solve.

As a sensitive and highly intuitive person in the command-and-control corporate world, I always felt miscast.