The time you spend with your best (employees) is, quite simply, your most productive time.

If you want to be clear, act.

Great managers know they don't have 10 salespeople working for them. They know they have 10 individuals working for them . A great manager is brilliant at spotting the unique differences that separate each person and then capitalizing on them.

Too many of the organizations I have observed resemble a farm in Kansas. They have lots of fences and silos as well as a storm cellar.

We all want the chance to express the very best of ourselves and to be challenged to keep reaching for more. Our time at work affords us this chance - not the only chance, to be sure, but, given that we're there forty or fifty hours a week, it's one of the best.

American culture is CEO obsessed. We celebrate the hard-charging heroes and mythologize the iconoclastic visionaries. Those people are important.

CEOs hate variance. It's the enemy. Variance in customer service is bad. Variance in quality is bad. CEOs love processes that are standardized, routinized, predictable. Stamping out variance makes a complex job a bit less complex.