Competition has never been more threatening than it is now. Innovative thinkers challenge the status quo in their organizations. They are often viewed as "troublemakers." They threaten the defenders of the status quo. So competition within an organization can also be brutal. The most effective leaders overcome "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom" by being change agents themselves. They encourage and reward innovative thinking. I have observed that people only resist changes imposed on them by other people.

If world problems feel too big to tackle, think small. Step by step. Small wins build confidence, lead the way to change.

Change masters are - literally - the right people in the right place at the right time. The right people are the ones with the ideas that move beyond the organization's established practice, ideas they can form into visions. The right places are the integrative environments that support innovation, encourage the building of coalitions and teams to support and implement visions. The right times are those moments in the flow of organizational history when it is possible to reconstruct reality on the basis on accumulated innovations to shape a more productive and successful future.

The way innovating companies are designed leaves ambiguities, overlaps, decision conflicts or decision vacuums in some parts of the organisation. People rail at this, curse it-and invent innovative ways to overcome it.

A self-reinforcing upward spiral: performance stimulating pride stimulating performance.

Confidence isn't optimism or pessimism, and it's not a character attribute. It's the expectation of a positive outcome.

Leaders is the new organisation do not lack motivational tools, but the tools are different from those of traditional corporate bureaucrats. The new rewards are based not on status but on contribution, and they consist not of regular promotion and automatic pay rises, but of excitement about the mission and a share of the glory of success.