Sometimes you lose - perhaps because you play against the very best, or because surprises happen - but if there is organizational confidence, you bounce back from losses and convert them to successes.

Too many people let others stand in their way and don't go back for one more try.

Confidence makes you willing to try harder and attracts the kind of support from others that makes "winning" possible.

The most radical thing we can do is connect people to one another. That starts conversations toward a vision for change.

The positive outlook that optimists project does not come from ignoring or denying problems. Optimists simply assume that problems are temporary and can be solved, so optimists naturally want more information about problems because then they can get to work and do something. Pessimists are more likely to believe that there is nothing they can do anyway, so what's the point of even thinking about it?

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.

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