When

The more you subsume your desire to shine, the more you will shine in the other person’s eyes.

someone offers a less-than-brilliant idea in a meeting, don’t criticize it. Say nothing. When someone challenges one of your decisions, don’t argue with them or make excuses. Quietly consider it and say nothing. When someone makes a helpful suggestion, don’t remind them that you already knew that. Thank them and say nothing. This is not a semantic

no matter how well-intentioned the CEO’s comments are, the net result is that grading people’s answers—rather than just accepting them without comment—makes people hesitant and defensive.

The only natural law I’ve witnessed in three decades of observing successful people’s efforts to become more successful is this: People will do something—including changing their behavior—only if it can be demonstrated that doing so is in their own best interests as defined by their own values.

I’ve studied the research on goal-setting and goal achievement. A lot of it centers on diet and fitness because (a) there’s a huge population of people interested in such goals, (b) it’s easy to measure, and (c) with record numbers of Americans either obese or out of shape, there’s a huge (and compelling) history of failure in this area. I’ve learn

Stop trying to change people who don’t think they have a problem.

• I outlined the complete methodology, statistical results, the companies

Among the myriad wise things I have heard Peter Drucker say, the wisest was, “We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don’t spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don’t need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.”