For good ideas and true innovation, you need human interaction, conflict, argument, debate.
The cell phone has become the adult's transitional object, replacing the toddler's teddy bear for comfort and a sense of belonging.
A great deal of creativity is about pattern recognition, and what you need to discern patterns is tons of data. Your mind collects that data by taking note of random details and anomalies easily seen every day: quirks and changes that, eventually, add up to insights.
In our house, Mother's Day is every day. Father's Day, too. In our house, parents count. They do important work and that work matters. One day just doesn't cut for us.
One of the sad truths about leadership is that, the higher up the ladder you travel, the less you know.
I haven't always hated McDonald's. When my kids were little and I lived in the U.S., they were as susceptible as anyone to Happy Meals and tatty toys that subsequently littered our sitting room.
The biggest catastrophes that we've witnessed rarely come from information that is secret or hidden. It comes from information that is freely available and out there, but that we are willfully blind to.
When you use words loosely, without care and consideration, you erode trust in yourself and in what you're saying. When you squander words, you diminish your power.
Building businesses takes tremendous stamina, and success isn't achieved without it.
The truth won't set us free - until we develop the skills and the habit and the talent and the moral courage to use it.
Words are how people think. When you misuse words, you diminish your ability to think clearly and truthfully.
Making a company fit to sell may be the only way to ensure you never need a buyer.
Customers who have to come back and spend, or customers who just don't want the hassle of leaving - those are the ones who are most worth attracting.
Business is not a science; it is not susceptible to experiments that can be controlled and replicated. Everything in business is too unpredictable for that - every business, employee, product, market is different and keeps changing.
What do you want your business to do? Make money, of course. To pay for people and supplies, to be able to grow.
A great advantage of a large corporation is supposed to be the large pool of talent in which its leaders can find and groom high achievers and successors.
I regularly take my entrepreneurship students out walking because I want to get them in the habit of noticing and thinking about what they notice. They have to leave their phones behind to learn the basic lesson: Be where you are.
Everywhere I look, there are ads marking Mother's Day. Mostly they conform to stereotype: flowers, jewelry, perfume. Not a lot of books. Not many computers. Few tools. Little that's useful.
Companies are bought for their revenue, customer base, technology, or people. A few great companies offer all of these, but any valuable business offers one.
As a mother, I work hard every day and I expect that work to be recognized and appreciated. Because I work for and with human beings, sometimes they're grateful and sometimes they aren't.
