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John Buchan said, "The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there."

Business lesson # 2: "Culture eats strategy for breakfast" - Peter Drucker The first time I read the above quote, I was slightly baffled. Surely, building and sustaining a competitive advantage in the business world depends on the ability to produce a winning strategy? Surely, a clear, differentiated strategy provides the direction for a team to channel their energy? Surely, without strategy a team won't know where they're going and they won't know when they've arrived? In my experience, str

I was recently asked what the most valuable business lesson of my career has been. It forced me to think long and hard, because there were quite a few lessons that came to mind. I ended up with a list of ten. I will devote my next ten blog entries to my ten most valuable business lessons. "There is no security in life, only opportunity" - Mark Twain We all want security in life, however, we often make the mistake to believe that we will find security by looking for security. It's in the chasing

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act, but a habit" - Aristotle. I recently had an informal discussion with the senior managers of MiWay on the topic of excellence. My questions to them were around the meaning of excellence and where they think it comes from; what does it mean to them? What is excellence and how does one become excellent or achieve excellence? I received a number of answers, for example, that excellence is a virtue and the way to reach excellence i