Sublime

contributes to the unmanageability of professionals: their daily roles as “experts.”

When we do, we assume the politicians are clients in a patron–client relationship, and we assume their obligations will cloud their impartial judgment.

• People view the latest strategic plan as today’s best guess rather than a sacred text.

Pluralistic-Green Organizations seek to deal with the problem of power inequality through empowerment, pushing decisions down the pyramid, and they often achieve much higher employee engagement.

Reagan cared more about the functions of self-government than his most ideological supporters. He knew how to persuade and when to compromise. But after he was gone, and the Soviet Union not long after him, Free America lost the narrative thread. Without Reagan’s smile and the Cold War’s clarity, its vision grew darker and more extreme. Its spirit

One last point: economists tend to be skeptical of any attempt to change people’s behavior that doesn’t change their incentives. For example, a plan that calls on manufacturers to reduce pollution voluntarily probably won’t be effective because it hasn’t changed manufacturers’ incentives.

At such firms (in contrast to many competitors), high growth is not a declared goal. Rather, such firms aim for controlled growth. The approach is one of, “We’ll grow as fast as we can train our people.” As Ron Daniel of McKinsey phrases it: “We neither shun growth nor idolize it. We view it as a by-product of achieving our other goals.”

Third-Party Insights

Globally, America has grown more alarmed about its enemies, less generous toward its friends, more wary of everybody.