Quotes from Harvard Business School Press

When competencies become imprisoned, the people who carry the competencies do not get assigned to the most exciting opportunities, and their skills begin to atrophy.

a deep investigation of the decision journey often reveals the need for a plan that will make the customer's experience coherent—and

This fourth phase is particularly challenging if the short-term sacrifices include job losses. Gaining understanding and support is tough when downsizing is a part of the vision. For this reason, successful visions usually include new growth possibilities and the commitment to treat fairly anyone who is laid off.

When you're attempting to discover what you do best and what you enjoy most, it's important to realize that these two things aren't necessarily mutually inclusive. You may get lots of positive feedback about something you're very good at but not truly enjoy it. Conversely, you can love doing something but have no gift for it, so that achieving success requires much more energy than it makes sense to invest.

Unless you understand the underlying problem, you risk designing a solution that doesn't do what users need—or one that does far more than required. Either way, you're wasting time and money

Business-unit managers should remain involved in corporate-level strategy planning that affects their units. But a focus on issues rather than business units better aligns strategy development with decision making and investment. Consider

Uhlaner put in place a Growth and Performance Planning Process that starts with agreement by Ballmer's leadership team on a set of strategic themes—major issues like PC market growth, the entertainment market, and security—that cross business-unit boundaries.

Management is the most noble of professions if it's practiced well. No other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement, and contribute to the success of a team.

More than education, more than experience, more than training, a person's level of resilience will determine who succeeds and who fails. That's true in the cancer ward, it's true in the Olympics, and it's true in the boardroom.

they are transforming their organizations into armies of killer apps and crunching their way to victory.

Without short-term wins, too many people give up or actively join the ranks of those people who have been resisting change.

The only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis. Whenever you make a key decision or take a key action, write down what you expect will happen.

In short, a customer feedback program should be viewed not as "market research" but as an operating management tool.

When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great performance.

Your decisions about allocating your personal time, energy, and talent ultimately shape your life's strategy. I have a bunch

Put yourself where your strengths can produce results.

When we see people acting in an abusive, arrogant, or demeaning manner toward others, their behavior almost always is a symptom of their lack of self-esteem. They need to put someone else down to feel good about themselves.

silencing doesn't resolve anything; rather than erase differences

Wherever there is success, there has to be failure.

Don't find fault, find a remedy. —Henry Ford

organizations need to shift their emphasis from getting more out of people to investing more in them, so they are motivated—and able—to bring more of themselves to work every day.

Resilient people and companies face reality with staunchness, make meaning of hardship instead of crying out in despair, and improvise solutions from thin air.

All too often, people make the mistake of focusing too much on the content of their

Communication isn't as simple as saying what you mean. How you say what you mean is crucial, and differs from one person to the next, because using language is learned social behavior: How we talk and listen are deeply influenced by cultural experience. Although we might think that our ways of saying what we mean are natural, we can run into trouble if we interpret and evaluate others as if they necessarily felt the same way we'd feel if we spoke the way they did.