When I was a kid, the bigger boys would pick on me. So I got an idea that I would make alliances with older boys, like just one or two, who would be my protectors.

Social change occurs when the gap between the ideals that people hold and the reality that they see every day gets too large.

I think re-engineering or restructuring or downsizing or rightsizing or whatever you want to call it, it's basically firing, has gone way too far. Employees, as I've talked to them across the country, feel that they are not respected, they are not valued, they are worried about their jobs. They simply feel that the company is no longer loyal to them. Why should they be loyal to the company, they ask me. Why should I go the extra mile? Why should I care?

Your most precious possession is not your financial assets. Your most precious possession is the people you have working there, and what they carry around in their heads, and their ability to work together.

You ask, "Could we have an honest discussion about earnings insurance?" I think we could, if people understood that the alternative was to build up a backlash against global capital, against free trade, against technological change.

It's very hard to establish an economy of trustworthiness. The key is continuing to innovate and to keep your customers through innovation, because the customers can leave. But once you are a dominant player that continues to innovate and provide a good deal, customers will stay with you.

A leader is someone who steps back from the entire system and tries to build a more collaborative, more innovative system that will work over the long term.