Newton discovered the law of gravity. He was correct, except in one situation. Everything does flow downhill. Except in an organization, where ownership flows uphill. We call it upward delegation. The result? Managers own all the wrong problems.

We won in the marketplace because we were willing to go the extra mile for our customers (witness the survey), and we had the guarantee.

Watch Your Neighbors. Customers and Suppliers Can Become Competitors. Beware of Left Field

“How can I maximize both value for my customers and profit for myself?” The answer? Create value. Customers don't buy price; they buy value. What is value? Like beauty, it is in the eye of the beholder. So I learned to ask my customers to tell me what value was for them. And guess what? They told me with clarity.

What current/future developments will change the way you and your unit do business? We follow with a subset of more specific questions, such as: • What developments are impacting both your department's activities and the company's? • What do you see coming in the future that will change the way you and your company do business? • What do you and

Value Is Doing It Better than Anybody Else

Second, every week everyone writes a “5/15” report, no longer than one page, which takes fifteen minutes to write and five minutes to read. That report answers three questions: “What did I accomplish this week?” “What remains to be done next week?” “What needs to be fixed/changed/eliminated?” Anything that needs fixing/changing/ eliminating must be

Again I found that the more I solved other people's problems, the more problems they'd bring to me. I had worked myself into a fulltime “solve other people's problems” job.

Partnerships require advance thought about the impact of any action on the other person. That's difficult, particularly if you guess wrong.