Neoteny is more than retaining a youthful appearance, although that is often part of it. Neoteny is the retention of all those wonderful qualities that we associate with youth: curiosity, playfulness,...
Trust is the lubrication that makes it possible for organizations to work.
Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.
The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born-that there is a genetic factor to leadership. This myth asserts that people simply either have certain charismatic qualities or not. That's...
It is the capacity to develop and improve their skills that distinguishes leaders from followers.
If knowing yourself and being yourself were as easy to do as to talk about, there wouldn't be nearly so many people walking around in borrowed postures, spouting secondhand ideas, trying desperately t...
Taking charge of your own learning is a part of taking charge of your life, which is the sine qua non in becoming an integrated person.
Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery.
The opposite of hope is despair, and when we despair, it is because we feel there are no choices.
Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity. The lessons of the ordinary are everywhere. Truly profound and original insights are to be found only in studying the exemplary.
The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.
Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard.
You need people who can walk their companies into the future rather than back them into the future.
Leadership that knows what it wants, communicates those intentions, positions itself correctly, and empowers its workforce.
In 1989, the Internet’s 400 early adopters were predicting that it would revolutionize how people communicate,
The first step in becoming a leader, then, is to recognize the context for what it is—a breaker, not a maker; a trap, not a launching pad; an end, not a beginning—and declare your independence.
As one Great Group after another has shown, talented people don’t need fancy facilities. It sometimes seems that any old garage will do. But they do need the right tools. The leaders of PARC threatene...
Our favorite example of meaning comes from a Peanuts cartoon strip. Lucy asks Schroeder—Schroeder playing the piano, of course, and ignoring Lucy—if he knows what love is. Schroeder stands at attentio...
One thing Great Groups do need is protection. Great Groups do things that haven’t been done before. Most corporations and other traditional organizations say they want innovation, but they reflexively...
Communities based on merit and passion are rare, and people who have been in them never forget them. And then there is the sheer exhilaration of performing greatly. Talent wants to exercise itself, ne...