We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don't spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don't need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop

It takes far less energy to move from first-rate performance to excellence than it does to move from incompetence to mediocrity.

Business has only two basic functions - marketing and innovation.

Because its purpose is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two - and only these two — basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are 'costs'.

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

Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.

No executive has ever suffered because his subordinates were strong and effective.