You shouldn't take pride in your natural talents any more than you should take pride in your sex, your race or color of your hair

In most cases, no matter what it is, if you measure it and reward it, people will try to excel at it

Clarity is the answer to anxiety. Effective leaders are clear.

Define excellence vividly, quantitatively. Paint a picture for your most talented employees of what excellence looks like. Keep everyone pushing and pushing toward the right-hand edge of the bell curve.

Most of my work has been in corporations, studying how you build an organization that helps people to identify and work to their strengths.

Remember the Golden Rule? "Treat people as you would like to be treated." The best managers break the Golden Rule every day. They would say don't treat people as you would like to be treated. This presupposes that everyone breathes the same psychological oxygen as you. For example, if you are competitive, everyone must be similarly competitive. If you like to be praised in public, everyone else must, too. Everyone must share your hatred of micromanagement.

CEOs the world over are fond of pointing to their workforce and saying "Our people are our greatest asset." And yet today, only two out of ten people think their assets are being well used at work.