“So this is (a manager's) dilemma: The manager must retain control and focus people on performance. But she is bound by her belief that she cannot force everyone to perform the same way. ... The solution is as elegant as it is efficient: Define the right outcomes and let each person find his own route toward these outcomes.”

“Forcing your employees to follow required steps only prevents customer dissatisfaction. If your goal is truly to satisfy, to create advocates, then the step-by-step approach alone cannot get you there. Instead, you must select employees who have the talent to listen and to teach, and then you must focus them toward simple emotional outcomes like partnership and advice....Identify a person's strenths. Define outcomes that play to those strengths. Find a way to count, rate or rank those outcomes. And then let the person run.”

“Since each person's talents are enduring, you should spend a great deal of time and money selecting people properly in the first place. This will help mitigate the 'I don't think I have the right talent for the role' problem.Since each person's talents are unique, you should focus performance by legislating outcomes rather than forcing each person into a stylistic mold. This means a strong emphasis on careful measurement of the right outcomes, and less on policies, procedures, and competencies. This will address the 'in my role I don't have any room to express my talents' problem.”

“Management controls performance in people because it impacts skills; it’s a matter of monitoring, analyzing and directing.”

“To be sure, the fundamental task of management remains the same: to make people capable of joint performance through common goals, common values, the right structure, and the training and development they need to perform and to respond to change.”

“When you manage people, you must first convince them they need managing. So you create the problems and then let the people cry for solutions.”