Sublime

When competing commitments need to be resolved, the questions are, how will the decision be made: through a mandate from on high, by majority rule, through consensus where everyone involved must agree? What groups are going to lose something as a result of this decision, and what precisely are they going to lose?

And in those organizations, there is a palpable norm of pushing decision making and idea generation down deep into the organization.

Guide to Management: Lasting Lessons from the Best Leadership Minds of Our Time, p. 82.

every aspect of a practice group’s affairs, from practice development to hiring, from economic structure to governance, will be affected by its relative positioning on this spectrum.

8. Small changes can produce big results—but the areas of highest leverage are often the least obvious.

Once that identity and the contributions that it brought to the organization were recognized, it was easier to take the risks necessary to venture into less familiar terrain.

when you’re in a tight position, you need to think less about strategy and even more about the culture you’re assembling.

The hidden power of Wal-Mart’s strategy came from a shift in perspective.

The more aware the manager becomes of interrelationships, the more incongruous becomes the idea that “bigger is better”—without an awareness of purpose, or the balance of the natural order.