“What’s worse than training your people and losing them? Not training them and keeping them.”

“Several years ago Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s book, Psycho-Cybernetics, was one of the most popular books on the market. Dr. Maltz was a plastic surgeon who often took disfigured faces and made them more attractive. He observed that in every case, the patient’s self-image rose with his and her physical improvement. In addition to being a successful surgeon, Dr. Maltz was a great psychologist who understood human nature. A wealthy woman was greatly concerned about her son, and she came to Dr. Maltz for advice. She had hoped that the son would assume the family business following her husband’s death, but when the son came of age, he refused to assume that responsibility and chose to enter an entirely different field. She thought Dr. Maltz could help convince the boy that he was making a grave error. The doctor agreed to see him, and he probed into the reasons for the young man’s decision. The son explained, “I would have loved to take over the family business, but you don’t understand the relationship I had with my father. He was a driven man who came up the hard way. His objective was to teach me self-reliance, but he made a drastic mistake. He tried to teach me that principle in a negative way. He thought the best way to teach me self-reliance was to never encourage or praise me. He wanted me to be tough and independent. Every day we played catch in the yard. The object was for me to catch the ball ten straight times. I would catch that ball eight or nine times, but always on that tenth throw he would do everything possible to make me miss it. He would throw it on the ground or over my head but always so I had no chance of catching it.” The young man paused for a moment and then said, “He never let me catch the tenth ball—never! And I guess that’s why I have to get away from his business; I want to catch that tenth ball!”

“the leader’s prayer written by Pauline H. Peters: “God, when I am wrong, make me willing to change. When I am right, make me easy to live with. So strengthen me that the power of my example will far exceed the authority of my rank.”

“Connectors create an experience everyone enjoys.”

“We must stop assuming that a thing which has never been done before probably cannot be done at all.” —Donald M. Nelson”

“To lead any way other than by example, we send a fuzzy picture of leadership to others. If we work on improving ourselves first and make that our primary mission, then others are more likely to follow.”

“El liderazgo es influencia, nada más y nada menos.”

“In general, there are no bad audiences; only bad speakers.”

“It’s easier to move from failure to success than from excuses to success.”

“No entender lo que usted quiere es un problema de conocimiento. No tratar de obtener lo que quiere es un problema de motivación. No lograr lo que quiere es un problema de persistencia.”

“It’s better to have a great team with a weak dream than a great dream with a weak team. Your team must be the size of your dream.”

“Leadership is not about titles, positions or flowcharts. It is about one life influencing another.”

“Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by another human being. Each of us owes deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this light.”

“The ability to connect with others begins with understanding the value of people.”

“A person who knows how may always have a job, but the person who knows why will always be his boss.”