Executives owe it to the organization and to their fellow workers not to tolerate nonperforming individuals in important jobs.

What is the manager's job? It is to direct the resources and the efforts of the business toward opportunities for economically significant results. This sounds trite - and it is. But every analysis of actual allocation of resources and efforts in business that I have ever seen or made showed clearly that the bulk of time, work, attention, and money first goes to problems rather than to opportunities, and, secondly, to areas where even extraordinarily successful performance will have minimal impact on results.

The only industries that function well are the industries that take responsibility for training. The Japanese, you know, assume that when you first come to work you know absolutely nothing. School isn't preparation for work and never was.

But innovation is more than a new method. It is a new view of the universe, as one of risk rather than of chance or of certainty. It is a new view of man's role in the universe; he creates order by taking risks. And this means that innovation, rather than being an assertion of human power, is an acceptance of human responsibility.

As a rule we perceive what we expect to perceive... The unexpected is usually not received at all.

The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.

Every success creates new opportunities. So does every failure.