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.

"The area in which the executive first encounters the challenge of strength is in staffing. The effective executive fills positions and promotes on the basis of what a man can do. He does not make staffing decisions to minimize weaknesses but to maximize strength."

They wrongly believe that good intentions move mountains. Bulldozers move mountains. But there are exceptions.

Your first and foremost job as a leader is to take charge of your own energy and then help to orchestrate the energy of those around you.

The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say "I." And that's not because they have trained themselves not to say "I." They don't think "I." They think "we"; they think "team." They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don't sidestep it, but "we" gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.

If a business is to be considered a continuous process, instead of a series of disjointed stop-and-go events, then the economic universe in which a business operates-and all the major events within it-must have rhyme, rhythm, or reason.

The purpose of a business is to create a customer.