Organizations are, in the last analysis, interactions among people.

Nothing fails like success.

Harnessing adversity is a discipline tailored to a world of unpredictable outcomes--a world where one can disturb, but not wholly direct, a living system. Because the unexpected--adversity--is guaranteed, this discipline is about routinely making lemons into lemon meringue pie.

The inherent preferences of organizations are clarity, certainty and perfection. The inherent nature of human relationships involves ambiguity, uncertainty, and imperfection. How one honors, balances, and integrates the needs of both is the real trick of feedback.

Explicit knowledge, conventionally delivered like pizza (neat boxes with toppings of concepts, theories, best practices and war stories), is consumed by the brain but not metabolized into action. The learning we call intuition, know-how and common sense gets into the blood stream through osmosis. It is shaped by social context.

Contrary to widespread faith in "communication" and "knowledge transfer," information has a social life, and unless new insights are embedded in the social system they evaporate.

The real objective isn't just "knowledge" or getting an 80-20 understanding of the situation. The overriding objective is engagement, creating a buzz, mobilizing people to take action.