We all have a vast number of areas in which we have no talent or skill and little chance of becoming even mediocre. In those areas a knowledge workers should not take on work, jobs and assignments. It takes far more energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.

"Plastic moments" are those periods that overlap when the old has gone but the new has not yet arrived and when the course of history is more open to being shaped and steered than any other time.

Spontaneity is an infinite number of rehearsed possibilities.

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.

The ultimate resource in economic development is people. It is people, not capital or raw materials that develop an economy.

Businesses are not paid to reform customers. They are paid to satisfy customers.

Above all, innovation is not invention. It is a term of economics rather than of technology.