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

Profit is not the purpose of a business, but rather the test of its validity

Whenever anything is being accomplished, it is being done, I have learned, by a monomaniac with a mission.

Innovation requires us to systematically identify changes that have already occurred in a business - in demographics, in values, in technology or science - and then to look at them as opportunities. It also requires something that is most difficult for existing companies to do: to abandon rather than defend yesterday.

The greatest challenge to organizations is the balance between continuity and change. You need both. At different times, the balance is slightly more over here, or slightly more over there, but you need both. And balance is basically the greatest task in leadership. Organizations have to have continuity, and yet if there is not enough new challenge, not enough change, they become empty bureaucracies, awfully fast.

An organization which just perpetuates today's level of vision, excellence, and accomplishment has lost the capacity to adapt.

"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."