Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary.

If great teams don't have an "enemy," they create one for themselves because, as former Coca-Cola CEO Roberto Goizueta pointed out, "you can't have a war without one."

All great leaders constantly seek new information and new ways of thinking.

Expect the best from your people and they will usually deliver but your expectations must be realistic.

Think of successful creative collaborations are dreams with deadlines.

Walt Disney, of all people, did a good job of describing his own netony. "People who have worked with me say I am 'innocence in action,'" he wrote. "They say I have the innocence and unselfconsciousness of a child. Maybe I have. I still look at the world with uncontaminated wonder."

No leader can create sustainable, significant change without a reservoir of good will. Without that, you always tend to compromise with failure.