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"The hero's journey has been the cornerstone of great literature and hit movies. We all know the winning dramatic premise: a beaten-down protagonist battles everyone from evil characters to wild beasts in a dangerous passage of self-discovery.
Strangely, the main frictions of modern man's largest battlefield have often been ignored in the books designed to steel you for that daily 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. grind.
Except for a few notable exceptions, the hostile territory otherwise known as the workplace has been treated with kid's gloves. We've been advised that the key to success is to 'be nice,' to develop 'lifelong mentors,' and a host of other absurd fantasies that no ten-year-old would ever swallow as remotely realistic or helpful."
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"When you talk about 'branding,' you are not discussing a superficial activity. More and more business people are finally starting to understand that.
A brand is not a veneer you apply to make a business (or product or service or idea) appealing to its intended audience. Instead, a brand begins to exist when a business has something to offer to the world—values, services, or products. From there, the brand's work is to articulate those unique attributes and strive to communicate them the right way, and to the right people. Even so, a brand is not what a business says it is. It's what the consumer ends up perceiving it to be."
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"The American corporation is bad at culture. It's good at management, finance, technology, and HR. It's getting better at innovation, cocreation and social media. But culture? It still pretty much sucks at culture.
Culture is the 'last mile' for the corporation. It's the final 'core competence' required for its skill set. Until it masters culture the way it now master the other pieces of management—finance, strategic planning, human resources—it will suffer the blind side hit or miss yet another opportunity. The thing about errors here is that they are not small. They do not merely take a percentage point of volume or profit. They do not merely inflict a tiny ding on a CEOs reputation. No, the mistakes that come from culture can cost millions. And they lay a CEO low. It's time to bring in a Chief Culture Officer."
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"From Genesis 'in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread' to Marx's ]the proletariat has nothing to lose but its chains,' work has always been seen as a constraint and the workplace as a ship's galley. But this is beginning to change, and it comes, we have discovered, not from workers but from their bosses. This is the most important corporate movement of the last two decades, a movement that has been quietly transforming the fortunes of dozens of businesses and the lives of thousands of employees by using a source of benefits neglected by most—complete freedom and responsibility for employees to take actions they, not their bosses, decide are best."
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"It is as if society has a vested interest (and we do, by the way) in 'keeping the party going,' and doing precisely that, even if for only a little while, and even if that means fooling ourselves. Fear has the world in its grips these days, and fear is the ultimate prosperity killer."
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