Leaders must pick causes they won't abandon easily, remain committed despite setbacks, and communicate their big ideas over and over again in every encounter.

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.

Power is the ability to get things done

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.

Power is America's last dirty word. It is easier to talk about money - and much easier to talk about sex - than it is to talk about power.

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.

Leaders must wake people out of inertia. They must get people excited about something they've never seen before, something that does not yet exist.