“The trick, and it’s a tough one, is a common cultural understanding of what kind of failure is okay and what kind leads to disaster.”
“Many of the innovative companies got their best product ideas from customers. That comes from listening, intently and regularly.”
“Far too many managers have lost sight of the basics, in our opinion: quick action, service to customers, practical innovation, and the fact that you can’t get any of these without virtually everyone’s commitment.”
“To the extent that culture and shared values are important in unifying the social dimensions of an organization, managed evolution is important in keeping a company adaptive.”
“The intensity of communications is unmistakable in the excellent companies. It usually starts with an insistence on informality.”
“A simple summary of what our research uncovered on the customer attribute is this: the excellent companies really are close to their customers. That’s it. Other companies talk about it; the excellent companies do it.”
“The art of creative leadership is the art of institution building, the reworking of human and technological materials to fashion an organism that embodies new and enduring values.”
“An effective leader must be the master of two ends of the spectrum: ideas at the highest level of abstraction and actions at the most mundane level of detail.”
“The revenue line does come first. But once the ball gets rolling, cost control and innovation effectiveness become fully achievable, parallel goals.”
“The “rules” in the excellent companies have a positive cast. They deal with quality, service, innovation, and experimentation. Their focus is on building, expanding, the opposite of restraining; whereas most companies concentrate on controlling, limiting, constraint.”