Time is a function of impact. The longer a book of mine has been in print, the greater its impact seems to be as people absorb and digest my ideas. I am especially proud of The Change Master: Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the American Corporation, first published in 1983, because it raised questions and addressed issues at a time when so many great changes were occurring in our society, indeed throughout the world.

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.

In the most innovative companies there is a significantly higher volume of thank yous than in companies of low innovation.

The degree to which the opportunity to use power effectively is granted to or withheld from individuals is one operative difference between those companies which stagnate and those which innovate.

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

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

I've found that small wins, small projects, small differences often make huge differences.