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"If we don't understand our own preferences or the true motivations behind our own behaviors, marketers are wasting billions of dollars each year by asking questions in quantitative surveys and qualitative focus groups people simply can't know the answer to. And marketers are using that information as the guiding forces to bring innovation and improvement to the marketplace. Not surprisingly, the success rate is abysmal, as only two of every ten new products launched in the U.S. succeeds. 'Houston, we have a problem.'"
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"The typical corporate environment may not be quite as fraught with danger as the realm of spies, but that doesn't negate the value of understanding the impact of emotions on decisions and performance. So, for a moment, let's loosen the ban we tend to enforce on expressing emotions in the workplace. Drop the barricade between the numbers and the feelings. Stop denying those aspects of human behavior that we, as leaders, feel we MUST deny. You can't lead if you're 'soft', right?
But you also can't influence what you pretend doesn't exist. Embrace vulnerability, if only to understand why your clients are vulnerable to wooing from your competitor. To see just how vulnerable your boss is to the pressure to give the other guy the promotion, instead of you. To know how vulnerable your best employees are to job offers from other companies."
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"Business people are the new superheroes. And they are here to save the world. Their super power is purpose. And with it they intend to improve and save billions of lives while putting millions more dollars back into the economy.
No force on the planet is greater than purpose, because purpose gives us our reason for being and doing. When you discover your purpose, you become unstoppable. It works the same for business."
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"Surprise is the enemy.
Or, is it?
Could we be overlooking—even resisting—one of the most essential catalysts of personal and business breakthroughs? Could we be ignoring the most fundamental tool that anyone can use to create disruptive innovation and change?
Here's the fundamental problem. Game changers—whether products, services, or new business models—don't necessarily result from big visions, carefully crafted strategies, and meticulous plans. Creating disruptive, game changing innovation requires leaders to live with uncertainty, embrace ambiguity, and respond to both good and bad surprises along the way.
We've been trained to resist the very thing that's needed to leapfrog to the next level. We need to learn to live with—even embrace—what most of us view as the enemy."
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"Most people believe that money is the primary motivator for top salespeople and that doing good by the world runs a distant second. That belief is wrong.
If your sales force isn't producing what it's capable of, it may well be that you're overemphasizing profit at the expense of purpose. This observation doesn't come just from personal experience but from hard data. Studies show that companies committed to improving their customer's lives outperform the market by a stunning 15:1 ratio. [...]
A quota-driven mindset spirals into the lowest common denominator sales activities. You start competing on cost not value. You think short-term, fail to understand the customer's environment, and cannot grasp the link between your products and the client's need. It's a slow descent to commodity status."
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