There are companies that are good at improving what they're already doing. There are companies that are good at extending what they're doing. And finally there are companies that are good at innovation. Every large company has to be able to do all three - improve, extend, and innovate - simultaneously.

Erroneous assumptions can be disastrous.

It is more productive to convert an opportunity into results than to solve a problem - which only restores the equilibrium of yesterday.

Conductors do not know how the oboe does its work, but they know what the oboe should contribute.

Knowledge applied is productivity.

What gets measured gets managed.

Salvation by society failed the most where it promised the most, in the communist countries. But it also failed in the West. Practically no government program enacted since the 1950s in the Western world - or in the communist countries - has been successful.