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 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.

Meetings are a symptom of bad organization. The fewer meetings the better.

It is easier to raise the performance of one leader than it is to raise the performance of a whole mass.

As soon as you move one step up from the bottom, your effectiveness depends on your ability to reach others through the spoken and written word.

What you have to do and the way you have to do it is incredibly simple. Whether you are willing to do it is another matter.

Innovative efforts should never report to line managers charged with responsibility for ongoing operations. The new project is an infant and will remain one for the foreseeable future, and infants belong in the nursery. The 'adults', that is, the executives in charge of existing businesses or products will have neither the time nor understanding for the infant.