Community. A friend started a real estate brokerage a few years ago. By the time she'd added her second employee, she was a pillar of her 35,000-person community. No rule says that only the local banker or car dealer can organize the program to raise supplemental funds for the public library or send the high school band on a well-earned special trip. Participating in community affairs, with time more than dollars, is good business from day one. It gets your name around, adds to your distinctiveness, and, best of all, makes you an attractive employer (which is the key to sustained success).

We found that the most exciting environments, that treated people very well, are also tough as nails. There is no bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo... excellent companies provide two things simultaneously: tough environments and very supportive environments.

The populations of most cities around the world continue to grow. The reasonspeople congregate in cities are various and complex, and the dawn of the digital age has not put much of adamper on the human urge to congregate.

There is no such thing as an insignificant improvement.

Even a poor, out-of-datecollection reflects in its own way the values of the people who created it and the community it serves.

Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing... layout, processes, and procedures.

How do you achieve excellence?...Stop doing non-excellent stuff!