Understanding our strengths, articulating our values, knowing where we belong -- these are also essential to addressing one of the great challenges of organizations: improving the abysmally low productivity of knowledge workers.

As a manager you're paid to be uncomfortable. If you're comfortable, it's a sure sign you're doing things wrong.

We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don't spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don't need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop

Knowledge is being applied to knowledge itself. It is now fast becoming the one factor in production, sidelining both capital and labour.

If a manager spends more than 10 percent of his time on "human relations" the group is probably too large.

Work is a process, and any process needs to be controlled. To make work productive, therefore, requires building the appropriate controls into the process of work.

Not to innovate is the single largest reason for the decline of existing organizations. Not to know how to manage is the single largest reason for the failure of new ventures.