Change is like putting lipstick on a bulldog. The bulldog's appearance hasn't improved, but now it's really angry.

I wonder whether there has been too much emphasis on teaching women to conform, to fit into the system. Certainly that suits conservative organizations in conservative times. But now ... innovation and creativity are necessary.

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.

Companies used to be able to function with autocratic bosses. We don't live in that world anymore.

Creativity is a lot like looking at the world through a kaleidoscope. You look at a set of elements, the same ones everyone else sees, but then reassemble those floating bits and pieces into an enticing new possibility.

Creativity does not derive from order but from the attempt to impose order where it does not exist, to make new connections.

Sports is a perfect activity in which to see streaks and cycles, organizational and otherwise, in action - and to watch confidence build or erode. There are repeated episodes of performance with similar rules and clear winners or losers. I added team sports to my studies of business because there are excellent parallels to work groups in the performance of sports teams and also excellent parallels to larger, more complex businesses or organizations in the strategy, structure, and culture surrounding any particular team.