“Operational effectiveness and strategy are both essential to superior performance.”

If your goal is anything but profitability – if it’s to be big, or to grow fast, or to become a technology leader – you’ll hit problems.

Without a goal analytics is aimless and worthless.

A strategy delineates a territory in which a company seeks to be unique.

The ability to change constantly and effectively is made easier by high-level continuity.

A target should go with every goal. A target is the value that defines success.

Change brings opportunities. On the other hand, change can be confusing.

Companies operating in urban communities have a tremendous ripple effect.

Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different.

Strategy is about setting yourself apart from the competition. It’s not a matter of being better at what you do – it’s a matter of being different at what you do.

Billions are wasted on ineffective philanthropy. Philanthropy is decades behind business in applying rigorous thinking to the use of money.

I teach in the medical school, the School of Public Health, the Kennedy School of Government, and the Business School. And it’s the best perch… because most of my work crosses boundaries.

You can’t be all things to all people.

There’s a fundamental distinction between strategy and operational effectiveness.

The U.S. is facing a structural competitiveness problem that is leading to the weakest economy we have seen in generations.

The underlying principles of strategy are enduring, regardless of technology or the pace of change.

The best CEOs I know are teachers, and at the core of what they teach is strategy.

Companies operating in urban communities have a tremendous ripple effect.

There’s a fundamental distinction between strategy and operational effectiveness.

Spirit is like the wind, in that we can’t see it but can see its effects, which are profound.

Thought is cause: experience is effect. If you don’t like the effects in your life, you have to change the nature of your thinking.

A special effect is a tool, a means of telling a story. A special effect without a story is a pretty boring thing.

People, for reasons of their own, often fail to do things that would be good for them or good for society. Those failures – joined with the similar failures of others – can readily have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.

It was long since I had longed for anything and the effect on me was horrible.

The cause is hidden. The effect is visible to all.