We've believed for 50 years that the Japanese are small Americans who wanted to be like us. They are not.

There is nothing antithetical in American history, culture, or traditions to teamwork. Teams were important in America's history - wagon trains conquered the West, men working together on the assembly line in American industry conquered the world, a successful national strategy and a lot of teamwork put an American on the moon first (and thus fare, last). But American mythology extols only the individual...In America, halls of fame exist for almost every conceivable activity, but nowhere do Americans raise monuments in praise of teamwork.

We've believed for 50 years that the Japanese are small Americans who wanted to be like us. They are not.

If a group of people has no sense where they came from-it is difficult for them to have a sense where they should go.

AT&T invented the cellular telephone, but saw no future in it. It takes entrepreneurs, who are angels of destruction, to take advantage of things which the inventor cannot or does not see.

The old foundations of success are gone ... The world's wealthiest man, Bill Gates, owns nothing tangible: no land, no gold or oil, no factories ... For the first time in history the world's wealthiest man owns only knowledge.

Change requires individuals who recognize that new things can be done and who take the initiative to get them done ... The existing bureaucracies, public and private, will not take on the job of changing what is.