Organizations exist to serve. Period. Leaders live to serve. Period.

The 10 or 12 artists I have known really well all my life are at least as competitive as professional athletes. They may express it in slightly different terms, but you look at the Jackson Pollocks et al., and they are as interested in wall space in the galleries as Joe Montana is in the percentage of completed passes. So the notion that symphonic conducting, or stage play, or pure art, is not a competitive business is real bullshit.

Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders.

Skill at creating, exploiting, and exiting crucial alliances beats ownership of fixed assets

Dot the i's, cross the t's, answer the phones promptly, send out errorless invoices, and in general never forget that the devil is in the details.

I urge you to set a tough, quantitative target for adding "differentiators" as I call them, to every service you provide.

I endorse a lot of people - sometimes people say I endorse too many books. And my response has always been the same: If I can get one case study that can give me one good idea that I can implement for $25, or for these days one-third of that on Kindle, I've gotten a very good deal.