The architecture of change involves the design and construction of new patterns, or the reconceptualization of old ones, to make new, and hopefully more productive, actions possible.
People who are making decisions about the future often don’t have access to some of the best ideas in the company, which may be at the periphery or at lower levels.
Perpetuating success or sliding into decline is the result of many intersecting forces that reinforce one another directly and indirectly. They are both cause and effect of winning or losing. Winning generates positive forces, losing generates negative forces.
Change demands new learning.
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.
Thinkers, makers and traders are the DNA of the world class company.
The commune movement is part of a reawakening of belief in the possibilities for utopia that existed in the nineteenth century and exist again today, a belief that by creating the right social institution, human satisfaction and growth can be achieved.
The Martha Stewart trial makes clear how far women have risen in the business world. America can be proud of our equal-opportunity prosecution and conviction.
A great idea is not enough.
Companies used to be able to function with autocratic bosses. We don’t live in that world anymore.
Winning becomes easier over time as the cornerstones of confidence become habits.
One of the symptoms of a losing streak is a turnover of top executives. It’s a revolving door.
After years of telling corporate citizens to ‘trust the system,’ many companies must relearn instead to trust their people – and encourage their people to use neglected creative capacities in order to tap the most potent economic stimulus of all: idea power.
A self-reinforcing upward spiral: performance stimulating pride stimulating performance.
The middle of every successful project looks like a disaster.
Leaders are more powerful role models when they learn than when they teach.
Pessimists see problems as stemming from stable and universal causes, thus making them less susceptible to corrective action. Optimists, in contrast, view problems as temporary and resulting from specific factors that will either change or be changed.
Creativity does not derive from order but from the attempt to impose order where it does not exist, to make new connections.
Money should never be separated from values. Detached from values it may indeed be the root of all evil. Linked effectively to social purpose it can be the root of opportunity.
In the most innovative companies there is a significantly higher volume of thank yous than in companies of low innovation.