Personal mastery teaches us to choose. Choosing is a courageous act: picking the results and actions which you will make into your destiny.

The company-as-a-machine model fits how people think about and operate conventional companies. And, of course, it fits how people think about changing conventional companies: You have a broken company, and you need to change it, to fix it.

Few, if any, forces in human affairs are as powerful as shared vision.

Learning cannot be disassociated from action.

Willpower is so common among highly successful people that many see its characteristics as synonymous with success.

When I look at efforts to create change in big companies over the past 10 years, I have to say that there's enough evidence of success to say that change is possible - and enough evidence of failure to say that it isn't likely. Both of those lessons are important.

The organizations that will truly excel in the future will be the organizations that discover how to tap people's commitment and capacity to learn at all levels in an organization.