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

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" I'm not one of those professors whose office is encased floor-to-ceiling with books. By the way, I think academics do this to intimidate their visitors. "

" 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. "

" In a world of commoditized knowledge, the returns go to the companies who can produce non-standard knowledge. "

" I don't know whether the universe contains any evidence of intelligent design, but I can assure you that thousands of everyday products do not. "

" Most companies don't have the luxury of focusing exclusively on innovation. They have to innovate while stamping out zillions of widgets or processing billions of transactions. "

" At the pinnacle of great design are products so gorgeous and lust-worthy that you want to lick them: a Porsche 911, Samsung's Luxia TV, an Eames lounge chair or anything by Loro Piana. "

" 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. "

" Over time, a successful company will acquire much in the way of resources and momentum, and these things often insulate it from reality once it has stopped being successful. "

" 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. "

" When a politician bends the truth or a CEO breaks a promise, trust takes a beating. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

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

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

" 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. "

" All too often, legacy management practices reflexively perpetuate the past - by over-weighting the views of long-tenured executives, by valuing conformance more highly than creativity and by turning tired industry nostrums into sacred truths. "

" Power has long been regarded as morally corrosive, and we often suspect the intentions of those who seek it. "

" 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. "

" In an ideal world, an individual's institutional power would be correlated perfectly with his or her value-add. In practice, this is seldom the case. "

" We owe our existence to innovation. Our species exists thanks to four billion years of genetic innovation. "

" An enterprise that is constantly exploring new horizons is likely to have a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining talent. "

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

" Online hierarchies are inherently dynamic. The moment someone stops adding value to the community, his influence starts to wane. "

" In most languages, 'control' is the first synonym for the word 'manage.' Control is about spotting and correcting deviations from pre-defined standards; thus to control, one must first constrain. "

" 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. "

" As the great grandchildren of the industrial revolution, we have learned, at last, that the heedless pursuit of more is unsustainable and, ultimately, unfulfilling. Our planet, our security, our sense of equanimity and our very souls demand something better, something different. "

" 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. "