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An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success.

Only so far as business leaders...can identify themselves with the underlying social impulses of their time can they hope to plan and build great organizations. They must be in accord not only with the interests of their stockholders, the desires of their consumers and the temper of their workers, but also with the deep flowing currents of opinion which are shaping the society of the future.

The only things that evolve by themselves in an organization are disorder, friction and malperformance.

...success in the marketplace today is directly proportional to the knowledge that an organization can bring to bear, how fast it can bring the knowledge to bear, and the rate at which it accumulates knowledge.

If you are planning for one year, grow rice. If you are planning for 20 years, grow trees. If you are planning for centuries, grow men.

The problem facing almost all leaders in the future will be how to develop their organizations' social architecture so that it actually generates intellectual capital.

Most change programs inside of companies don't work because they address content (the knowledge, structure, and data in a company) or process (the activities and behaviors), but they never address the context in which both of those elements reside. The source of people's action isn't what they know but how they perceive the world around them...Context can be an individual's mind-set or the organizational culture. It includes all of the assumptions and norms that are brought to the table. Context is perception, as opposed to facts or data. People don't go off and design their context -- they just inherit it.

There is no limit to what can be accomplished when no one cares who gets the credit.

Top executives should rate their subordinates on loyalty and competence. Those who are more loyal than competent should be fired because they are the dangerous ones. They will stay forever while other more competent, less loyal people will jump ship as problems develop. And the loyal, noncompetent subordinates will "protect" their bosses from the truth. Reality will be too threatening and ugly. When truth dies, really bad things happen.

Organizations that that want the benefits of effective followers must find ways of rewarding them, ways of bringing them into full partnership in the enterprise. Think of the thousands of companies that achieve adequate performance and lackluster profits with employees they treat as second-class citizens. Then imagine for a moment the power of an organization blessed with fully engaged, fully energized, fully appreciated followers.

No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under leadership composed of average human beings.

You must not retain for one instant any man in a responsible position where you have become doubtful of his ability to do his job. This matter call for more courage than any other thing you will have to do, but I expect you to be perfectly cold-blooded about it.

When you find a fabulous person, hire him (or her)... then figure out where they fit later.

In the knowledge society the most probable assumption for organizations - and certainly the assumption on which they have to conduct their affairs - is that they need knowledge workers far more than knowledge workers need them.

Generals are expendable just as is any other item in an army.

There is no future in any job. The future lies in the man who holds the job.

Organizational effectiveness is "the ability of an organization to fulfill its mission through a blend of sound management, strong governance, and a persistent rededication to achieving results."

You can hire good people. You can ask for big ideas. But if you don't create an environment where good people can nurture and grow their big ideas, you might as well kiss your competitive advantage goodbye.

When people walk in the door, they want to know: What do you expect out of me? What's in this deal for me? What do I have to do to get ahead? Where do I go in this organization to get justice if I'm not treated appropriately? They want to know how they're doing. They want some feedback. And they want to know that what they are doing is important.

If you take the basic principles of leadership and answer those questions over and over again, you can be successful dealing with people.

Money doesn't have the emotional content of a real motivator. Money is a satisfier, not a motivator. When you don't have it, it's all you can think about. But when you have it, you don't really think about it. Motivation decreases as appetite for money is satisfied.

Life is change. Growth is optional.

Corollary: If the rate of external change exceeds our rate of internal growth we're eventually going to be changed.

The enjoyment of property that [man] has in this state [the state of nature] is very unsafe, very unsecure. This makes him willing to quit a condition, which, however free, is full of fears and continual dangers: and it is not without reason, that he seeks out, and is willing to join in society with others, who are already united, or have a mind to unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name, property.

When they listen to your ravings with indulgence, and, heaven help me, affection, you know you've joined the herd.

The different priorities that employees have can be described by the acronym MORE - Money, Opportunity, Respect, Experience

Find a wide selection of interviews with business luminaries in our Interviews Section

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Far more people act themselves into a new way of thinking than think themselves into a new way of acting.

When responsible action, the natural love of learning, and the desire to do good work are already part of who we are, then the tacit assumption to the contrary can be fairly described as dehumanizing.

Three classes of factors affect what an organization can and cannot do: its resources, its processes, and its values.

Although people profess to learn from their mistakes, their behavior is shaped by their successes. This is why change is hard for people. Confronted with failure, or with a new world where the old tricks aren't working any more, most people keep doing what they have been doing, only harder.

Schwerpunkt, a German term meaning organizational focus, "represents a unifying medium that provides a directed way to tie initiative of many subordinate actions with superior intent as a basis to diminish friction and compress time.

as [Ralphp] Ellison went on to argue, American diversity and unease are more often than not the parents of American excellence.