“The single greatest advantage any company can achieve is organizational health. Yet it is ignored by most leaders even though it is simple, free, and available to anyone who wants it.”

“Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline.”

“When you’re struggling with a difficult decision about your team, it usually comes down to short term pain vs. long term pain. Take your choice.”

“Our fatigue is often not caused by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.”

“Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives’ decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake.”

“Hire for character. Train for skill.”

“...two critical truths have become clear to me. First, genuine teamwork in most organizations remains as elusive as it has ever been. Second, organizations fail to achieve teamwork because they unknowingly fall prey to five natural but dangerous pitfalls, which I call the five dysfunctions of a team.”

“Accountability is defined as ‘producing results for others.’ Thus, being accountable is a gift the accountable person gives to others. If being accountable for something occurs as a privilege for the accountable person, then the release of that accountability into their hands (‘letting them be accountable’) is a gift as well. Accountability is inherently territorial. If an accountability is considered ‘shared,’ then the conversation was not specific enough and no one is accountable.”

“For a negotiator to reach an agreement that meets his own self-interest he needs to develop a solution which also appeals to the self-interest of the other.”

“Letting the wrong people hang around is unfair to all the right people, as they inevitably find themselves compensating for the inadequacies of the wrong people. Worse, it can drive away the best people. Strong performers are intrinsically motivated by performance, and when they see their efforts impeded by carrying extra weight, they eventually become frustrated.”