Most executives have learned that what one postpones, one actually abandons ... timing is a most important element in the success of any effort. To do five years later what would have been smart to do five years earlier, is almost a sure recipe for frustration and failure.

To make knowledge productive, we will have to learn to see both forest and tree. We will have to learn to connect.

You can either take action, or you can hang back and hope for a miracle. Miracles are great, but they are so unpredictable.

History has been written not by the most talented but by the most motivated.

All earlier pluralist societies destroyed themselves because no one took care of the common good. They abounded in communities but could not sustain community, let alone create it.

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.

The one to distrust is the person who never makes a mistake, never commits a blunder, never fails in what he tries to do. Either he is a phony, or he stays with the safe, the tried and the trivial.