It's a special person - and personality - who can lead a start-up to soaring success and sustain that success for the long term. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg are star examples.

The corporate world is appallingly bad at capitalizing on the strengths of its people.

All the great organizations have great managers at all levels who recognize where their culture is getting stronger and where it is getting weaker. There are always reasons why.

You will learn and grow the least in your areas of weakness.

My point is, people really don't change very much.

I need to reach out to people who work for small to mid-sized companies, and help them identify and apply their strengths at work.

Every time you make a rule you take away a choice, and choice, with all of its illuminating repercussions, is the fuel for learning.