Justifying your behavior doesn’t make it just.

Good strategists beat the competition, but great strategists avoid them.

Executed poorly, buy & build acquisitions quickly become buy & killed.

Most managers are business savvy but organizationally naïve.

The third rule of corporate strategy: Centralization only seems a good idea to those sitting at the center.

Strategies can develop in an emergent way but shouldn’t develop in an emergency way.

For organizations to go from “good to great”, leaders must go from god to guide.

Warm families are shaped by relationships, efficient bureaucracies by procedures, effective teams by a mix of both.

Ambition and ambivalence are opposite drivers of behavior.

A strategy set on paper can be as rigid as a strategy set in stone.