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Great groups deliver great results. And for everyone involved in a great group, great work is its own reward.

Warren G. Bennis

Someone once wrote that the sound of surprise is jazz, and if there’s any one thing that we must try to get used to in this world, it’s surprise and the unexpected. Truly, we are living in world where the only thing that’s constant is change.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Jazz Living Someone Surprise World
Almost without exception, members of great groups see themselves as winning underdogs, as a feisty David hurling fresh ideas at a big, backward-looking Goliath. They always have an “enemy.”
WARREN G. BENNIS

Backward Enemy Ideas Themselves Winning
Great things are accomplished by talented people who believe they will accomplish them.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Accomplishment Believe Inspirational
Leaders are people who do the right thing: managers are people who do things right. Both roles are crucial, but they differ profoundly. I often observe people in top positions doing wrong things well.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Leaders People Roles
What makes a good follower? The single most important characteristic may well be a willingness to tell the truth. In a world of growing complexity leaders are increasingly dependent on their subordinates for good information, whether the leaders want to hear it or not.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Characteristics Important Leader Truth Willingness
Create a compelling vision, one that takes people to a new place, and then translate that vision into a reality.
WARREN G. BENNIS

People Reality Vision
Successful leaders are great askers
WARREN G. BENNIS

Leader Problem Successful
Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Dance Leadership Music
I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don’t think that’s quite it; it’s more like jazz. There is more improvisation.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Leadership Running Thinking
People who cannot invent and reinvent themselves must be content with borrowed postures, secondhand ideas, fitting in instead of standing out.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Ideas People Standing
Understand the “Gretzky Factor”: Cultivate an instinct, a “touch”, call it what you will, that enables you to know both where the “puck” is now and where it will be soon.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Country Instinct Puck Soon
You are your own raw material. When you know what you consist of and what you want to make of it, then you can invent yourself.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Knows Materials Raw Want
That’s nonsense; in fact, the opposite is true. Leaders are made rather than born.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Future Leader Leadership Opposites
Great things are achieved by talented people who are absolutely convinced that they not only can but will achieve them.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Achieve Great People Things
If knowing yourself and being yourself were as easy to do as to talk about, there wouldn’t be nearly so many people walking around in borrowed postures, spouting secondhand ideas, trying desperately to fit in rather than to stand out.
WARREN G. BENNIS

Being Ideas Knowing Yourself
If great teams don’t have an “enemy,” they create one for themselves because, as former Coca-Cola CEO Roberto Goizueta pointed out, “you can’t have a war without one.”
WARREN G. BENNIS

Create Enemy Team War

Great groups deliver great results. And for everyone involved in a great group, great work is its own reward.

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Great groups deliver great results. And for everyone involved in a great group, great work is its own reward.

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