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

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.

At the heart of every faith system is a bargain: on one side there is the comfort that comes from a narrative that suggests human life has cosmic significance, and on the other a duty...

Resilience is based on the ability to embrace the extremes — while no becoming an extremist. … **Most companies don’t do paradox very well.**(emphasis by author)[2002] p.25f

I was frustrated for a long time with my colleagues in the business school world and with so many management authors who didn’t really see themselves as innovators. They were glorified journalists.

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

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.

In a democracy, you don’t need anyone’s permission to form a new political party, publish a politically charged article, or organize a ‘tea party.’ And in open markets, individuals are free to buy and invest...

Truth be told, there are lots of companies that provide exemplary phone support. DirecTV, Virgin America and Apple are a few that regularly exceed my expectations.

Most of us understand that innovation is enormously important. It’s the only insurance against irrelevance. It’s the only guarantee of long-term customer loyalty. It’s the only strategy for out-performing a dismal economy.

It doesn’t matter much where your company sits in its industry ecosystem, nor how vertically or horizontally integrated it is – what matters is its relative ‘share of customer value’ in the final product or...

Top-down authority structures turn employees into bootlickers, breed pointless struggles for political advantage, and discourage dissent.

Management innovation is going to be the most enduring source of competitive advantage. There will be lots of rewards for firms in the vanguard.

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.

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.

Trust is not simply a matter of truthfulness, or even constancy. It is also a matter of amity and goodwill. We trust those who have our best interests at heart, and mistrust those who seem...

It’s not just that individuals have lost faith in the integrity of their leaders, it’s that they no longer believe society’s most powerful institutions are acting in their interests.