Fully 35 percent of U.S. employees reported that they would willingly forgo a substantial pay raise in exchange for seeing their direct supervisor fired.

Most of the drugs currently used to treat cancer are toxic poisons. Radiation, also used to treat cancer, kills if the dose is too high. Many therapeutic advances entail trying to get the chemical substances or the radiation focused more precisely on the cancerous cells, sparing the healthy tissue, in the recognition that you need the poison but

Kennedy School lecturer Barbara Kellerman estimated that about $50 billion is spent on corporate training and development annually.8 The American Society for Training and Development’s (ATSD) 2012 state of the industry report estimated that $156.2 billion was spent on employee learning and development during 2011.

For every aspect of operations, the question was “Do you have a standard?” Standards and measurements, made visible through charts in every unit, were what drove the remarkable performance improvement—not nice words or inspiring stories.

“healthcare organisations that systematically and effectively learn from the failures that occur in the care delivery process . . . are rare”;

second approach worth considering, one that grew out of the quality movement; it’s an approach that helps explain why flying in an airplane has become so incredibly safe. Whenever there is an airplane accident, or for that matter, a number of near-accidents or other problems, the customary response is to try to redesign the plane to make such

The leadership industry is so obsessively focused on the normative—what leaders should do and how things ought to be—that it has largely ignored asking the fundamental question of what actually is true and going on and why. Unless and until leaders are measured for what they really do and for actual workplace conditions, and until these leaders are

The most fundamental principle of learning theory is that behavior is a function of its consequences. When behavior is rewarded, that behavior gets repeated with even greater frequency. When behavior is ignored or punished, the frequency of the behavior diminishes.37 In the world of leadership, and particularly the world of senior leadership, what

Winston Churchill commented, “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried from time to time.”