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

If we have to know without a doubt that the choices we are making are the perfect ones, we risk never making any choices at all.

People should be hired "as is" and their managers then help them to develop their individual strengths while completing tasks for which they have the greatest aptitude and in which they have the greatest interest.

Forcing your employees to follow required steps only prevents customer dissatisfaction. If your goal is truly to satisfy, to create advocates, then the step-by-step approach alone cannot get you there. Instead, you must select employees who have the talent to listen and to teach, and then you must focus them toward simple emotional outcomes like partnership and advice....Identify a person's strenths. Define outcomes that play to those strengths. Find a way to count, rate or rank those outcomes. And then let the person run.

Innovation and best practices can be sown throughout an organization - but only when they fall on fertile ground.

Sustained success means making the greatest possible impact over the longest period of time

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