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" A noble purpose inspires sacrifice, stimulates innovation and encourages perseverance. "

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" To escape the curse of commoditization, a company has to be a game-changer, and that requires employees who are proactive, inventive and zealous. "

" If corporate leaders and their acolytes are not slaves to some meritorious social purpose, they run the risk of being enslaved by their own ignoble appetites. "

" In most companies, the formal hierarchy is a matter of public record - it's easy to discover who's in charge of what. By contrast, natural leaders don't appear on any organization chart. "

" Most of us understand that innovation is enormously important. It's the only insurance against irrelevance. It's the only guarantee of long-term customer loyalty. It's the only strategy for out-performing a dismal economy. "

" What's true for churches is true for other institutions: the older and more organized they get, the less adaptable they become. That's why the most resilient things in our world - biological life, stock markets, the Internet - are loosely organized. "

" I live a half mile from the San Andreas fault - a fact that bubbles up into my consciousness every time some other part of the world experiences an earthquake. I sometimes wonder whether this subterranean sense of impending disaster is at least partly responsible for Silicon Valley's feverish, get-it-done-yesterday work norms. "

" The fact is, society is made more hospitable by every individual who acts as if 'do unto others' really was a rule. "

" It's important to remember that innovators in business don't always get a platform. "

" The biggest barriers to strategic renewal are almost always top management's unexamined beliefs. "

" In most organizations, change comes in only two flavors: trivial and traumatic. Review the history of the average organization and you'll discover long periods of incremental fiddling punctuated by occasional bouts of frantic, crisis-driven change. "

" In a well-functioning democracy, citizens have the option of voting their political masters out of office. Not so in most companies. "

" While one should never underestimate the ability of risk-besotted financiers to wreak havoc, the real threat to capitalism isn't unfettered financial cunning. It is, instead, the unwillingness of executives to confront the changing expectations of their stakeholders. "

" An uplifting sense of purpose is more than an impetus for individual accomplishment, it is also a necessary insurance policy against expediency and impropriety. "

" Top-down authority structures turn employees into bootlickers, breed pointless struggles for political advantage, and discourage dissent. "

" As human beings, we are the only organisms that create for the sheer stupid pleasure of doing so. Whether it's laying out a garden, composing a new tune on the piano, writing a bit of poetry, manipulating a digital photo, redecorating a room, or inventing a new chili recipe - we are happiest when we are creating. "

" Over the centuries, religion has become institutionalized, and in the process encrusted with elaborate hierarchies, top-heavy bureaucracies, highly specialized roles and reflexive routines. "

" During the ten years I lived in the U.K., I frequently attended an Anglican church just outside of London. I enjoyed the energetic singing and the thoughtful homilies. And yet, I found it easy to be a pew warmer, a consumer, a back row critic. "

" Remarkable contributions are typically spawned by a passionate commitment to transcendent values such as beauty, truth, wisdom, justice, charity, fidelity, joy, courage and honor. "

" A well-conceived product excels at what it does. It's close to being functionally flawless - like a Ziploc bag, a radio from Tivoli Audio, a Philips Sonicare toothbrush, a Nespresso coffee maker or Google's home page. "

" You can't build an adaptable organization without adaptable people - and individuals change only when they have to, or when they want to. "

" The real damper on employee engagement is the soggy, cold blanket of centralized authority. In most companies, power cascades downwards from the CEO. Not only are employees disenfranchised from most policy decisions, they lack even the power to rebel against egocentric and tyrannical supervisors. "

" An adaptable company is one that captures more than its fair share of new opportunities. It's always redefining its 'core business' in ways that open up new avenues for growth. "

" Obviously, you don't have to be religious to be moral, and beastly people are sometimes religious. "

" It's not unusual for a would-be entrepreneur to get turned down half a dozen times before finding a willing investor - yet in most companies, it takes only one 'nyet' to kill a project stone dead. "

" Building human-centered organizations doesn't imply a return to the paternalistic, corporate welfare practices of the 19th century. Most of us don't want to be nannied. "

" Fact is, inventing an innovative business model is often mostly a matter of serendipity. "

" Most of us do more than subsist. From the vantage point of our ancestors, we live lives of almost unimaginable ease. Here again, we have innovation to thank. "

" Today, no leader can afford to be indifferent to the challenge of engaging employees in the work of creating the future. Engagement may have been optional in the past, but it's pretty much the whole game today. "

" I am an ardent supporter of capitalism - but I also understand that while individuals have inalienable, God-given rights, corporations do not. "

" Businesses fail when they over-invest in what is at the expense of what could be. "