Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes.
It's not enough to be close to the customer. You've got to be glued to the customer.
When it comes to e-book playback devices and software, I have always thought that the emphasis on ergonomic concerns as a tipping point for the end-user population was misplaced.
Train everyone lavishly. You can't overspend on training.
Success requires a persistent misreading of the odds.
The trouble with much of the advice business gets today about the need to be more vigorously creative is that its advocates often fail to distinguish between creativity and innovation. Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things... The shortage is of innovators.