If your goal is anything but profitability - if it's to be big, or to grow fast, or to become a technology leader - you'll hit problems.

Competitiveness is defined as the ability of companies to compete while maintaining or improving the average standard of living. If you are cutting wages to become more competitive, that's not really more competitive. It's raising the skill and the efficiency of those workers so that they can support and sustain that higher wage.

Technology has given us this wonderful opportunity to have low energy costs. We have to seize that, rather than keep debating and discussing and fighting over it.

The ability to change constantly and effectively is made easier by high-level continuity.

Finally, strategy must have continuity. It can't be constantly reinvented.

The economic distress of America's inner cities may be the most pressing issue facing the nation. The lack of businesses and jobs in disadvantaged urban areas fuels not only a crushing cycle of poverty but also crippling social problems such as drug abuse and crime… A sustainable economic base can be created in the inner city, but only as it has been created elsewhere: through private, for-profit initiatives and investment based on economic self-interest and genuine competitive advantage.

I teach in the medical school, the School of Public Health, the Kennedy School of Government, and the Business School. And it's the best perch... because most of my work crosses boundaries.