"Acquired through business schools and other educational experiences and from consultants and management gurus, absorbed from peers and the business press, and formed out of career experiences, a manager's genetic coding establishes the range and likelihood of responses in particular situations.... All of us are prisoners, to one degree or another, of our experience."

“Whatever market a company might dominate today, it is likely to change substantially over the next ten years. There's no such thing as "sustaining" leadership; it must be reinvented again and again.”

“Resilience is based on the ability to embrace the extremes—while not becoming an extremist. Most companies don't do paradox very well.”

“Only after Southwest Airlines became the most profitable airline in America did United and American challenge their long-held assumptions about how to compete. At worst, laggards follow the path of greatest familiarity. Challengers, on the other hand, follow the path of greatest opportunity, wherever it leads.”

“If a top management team cannot clearly articulate the five or six fundamental industry trends that most threaten its firm's continued success, it is not in control of the firm's destiny.”

“Most of us understand that innovation is enormously important. It's the only insurance against irrelevance. It's the only guarantee of long-term customer loyalty. It's the only strategy for out-performing a dismal economy.”

“Our fifth premise is that the resource allocation task of top management has received too much attention when compared to the task of resource leverage.”