The effective executive knows that it is easier to raise the performance of one leader than it is to raise the performance of a whole mass. She therefore makes sure she puts into the leadership position, into the standard-setting, the performance-making position the person who has the strength to do the outstanding pacesetting job. This always requires focus on the one strength of a person and dismissal of weaknesses as irrelevant unless they hamper the full deployment of the available strength.

The fewer data needed, the better the information. And an overload of information, that is, anything much beyond what is truly needed, leads to information blackout. It does not enrich, but impoverishes.

Tomorrow always arrives. It is always different. And even the mightiest company is in trouble if it has not worked on the future. Being surprised by what happens is a risk that even the largest and richest company cannot afford, and even the smallest business need not run.

To survive and succeed, every organization will have to turn itself into a change agent

Business enterprise is an organ of society. There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.

The manager who comes up with the right solution to the wrong problem is more dangerous than the manager who comes up with the wrong solution to the right problem.

Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you've got.