The idea that people only have strengths and no weaknesses is a prescription for mediocrity. Strong people always have strong weaknesses. You can't address your weakness if you don't admit you have any. No team leader has ever suffered because his subordinates were strong and effective.

People concerned with what a person cannot do rather than what he can do and who try to avoid weakness rather than make strength effective are weak themselves. They probably see strength in others as a threat to themselves. Many people see a good example as a mirror that reflects their failings. They can learn from this feeling, or they can break the mirror. Sadly many choose the latter.

To achieve results, one has to use all the strengths available. In strengths lies genuine opportunities. To make strengths productive in achieving company goals is the unique purpose of an organization. It can't overcome the weakness with which each of us possesses in abundance. But it can make them irrelevant by doubling down on the strengths. Organizations can accomplish this by using each person's strengths as a building block for sustained overall performance.

Doubling down on your strengths is as much of an attitude as it is a practice. You can improve it with practice. If one forms a habit of asking- "What can this person do?" rather than "What can this person not do"one will soon acquire the attitude of looking for strength and using strength. Strength produces high-quality results. Weakness produces low morale and headaches.

The rules that govern the actions of players and the game's response to the actions are called Game mechanics. Game mechanics specifies how the game will work for the people who play it. The interactions of game mechanics determine the complexity and level of player interaction in the game's environment and resources.

Any organization in business depends on customers to buy their product or service because, without customers, there is no business. The lack of customers for an extended period causes the organization to go 'out of business.

Gameplay is the primary aim of the game. For a racing video game, the objective is to win the race without crashing the vehicle. For the game of quality, the primary goal is to satisfy the customers' requirements, and expectations through the product or service offered. The reward for playing the game well is more business and profits (for immediate and future needs).

If you must play, decide on three things from the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time. -Chinese Proverb

David Hoyle's book Quality Management Essentials states that there are other stakeholders (players) with a vested interest in the organization than customers. They also have needs from the organization even though they do not receive the product or service. These players are owners, employees, contractors, suppliers, investors, unions, business partners, and society. All players in the game have requirements. The definition of quality is relative to requirements, not to the customers.

Keeping up with the game analogy, then, is quality a single-player game or a multiplayer game? At first thought, the answer may seem straightforward, but it is quite the contrary.

The customer certainly is the only one who can decide whether the quality of the product and services you provide is satisfactory. So the customer brings in revenue and therefore is the final arbiter of product quality. Meeting or exceeding customer needs is the common goal of all the other players in the team.

In a team, each player is just as important as every other player. Suppose each player provides outputs and makes complementary plays. In that case, it enables the other players to do their job right the first time, thus helping them achieve their goal. Phil Crosby's observation that "quality is ballet, not hockey" is on point. Hockey participants do not treat each other as this player and that player, but as team members, they do their best. The results are primarily unpredictable. Ballet participants also do not treat each other as individual players but as artists playing predetermined roles. The goal is to achieve predictable results. The design of organizational processes is to deliver specific outputs. To do so, individuals need to perform their part in the same relationship that ballet dancers have to ballet.

Back to the single-player or multiplayer question, the game of quality is both. Externally, it is a single-player game between the business owner and the customer. The better the owner gets at playing the game, the bigger the customer base gets to increase the game's complexity. Internally, it is a multiplayer game because the customer does not know how many people are "holding the joystick" on the other side. When one stakeholder has played their part, they hand over the joystick to the next stakeholder, who continues playing the game until achieving the goal.

Marcus Tullius Cicero coined qualitas as a term to translate the Ancient Greek word ποιότης (poiótēs, “quality”), coined by Plato from ποῖος (poîos, “of what nature, of what kind”).

Between 1984-1988 David.A Garvin gave a rationale as to why quality should have different meanings in different contexts. He suggested five co-existing definitions of quality:

• transcendent (excellence)
• product-based (amount of desirable attribute)
• user-based (fitness for use)
• manufacturing -based (conformance to specification)
• value-based (satisfaction relative to price)

The approach may change from user-based to product-based as the product moves from product market fit to design and then from product-based to manufacturing-based as they go from design to manufacture.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. - Antoine De Saint-Exupéry

Excellence is not a gift, but a skill that takes practice.
We do not act "rightly" because we are "excellent",
in fact we achieve "excellence" by acting "rightly". - Plato

In the simplest terms, quality is the capacity of a product or service to satisfy human wants. As human wants are complex and may not be satisfied in a specific way, each user of the product or service makes their own assessment of what quality means to them.

In 1993, Garvin, Harvey, and Green proposed five discrete and interrelated definitions of quality. They are:

1. exceptional- there are three variations to this concept: traditional, excellence, and standards. Traditional can be expressed as distinctiveness, something high class. It is a status symbol on owners and implies exclusivity. Excellence has two schools of thought: first, it relates to high standards and second, it describes 'zero defects'. In a way 'excellence' is similar to 'traditional' definition and identifies the component of excellence which is also unattainable. Standard is one that has passed a set of quality checks, where the checks are based on certain criteria (defined by regulation or industry standard) to eliminate defective items. Failure is the price we pay for standards. Because mediocrity has consequences both real and harsh, standards are necessary.
2. perfection- another way to phrase this is to have process consistency. This definition focuses on the importance of well defined specifications and transforms the 'traditional' idea of quality into something than can be achieved by all. Quality is one which confirms exactly to specification and whose output is free of defects at all times.
3. fitness for purpose- this definition focuses on the relationship between the purpose of the product or service and its quality. This definition is a functional one and is different from the 'exceptional' definition. It may sound a simple idea, however, it raises some questions such as whose purpose and how is the fitness assessed?
4. value for money- this definition is described as the price you can afford to pay for your requirements at a reasonable cost, which means quality is compared with the level of specification and is directly related to cost.
5. transformative- the transformative view of quality is rooted in the notion of 'qualitative change', a fundamental change of form. Ice is transformed into water and eventually steam if it experiences increase of temperature. While the increase in temperature can be measured the transformation involves a qualitative change. Ice has different qualities to that of steam and water. Transformation is not restricted to apparent or physical transformation but also includes cognitive transcendence.

Between 1970-1990, quality has been defined by different people including Ishikawa (1976), Juran and Gryna (1980), Deming (1982), Kano (1984), Taguchi (1986), Scherkenback (1988), and Kanji (1990).

Quality is a philosophy with various dimensions and can be summed up as 'doing things properly' for competitiveness and profitability. It is a holistic concept that has two ideas, i.e. quality is 'consistency' and quality is 'fitness for purpose'. These two ideas are brought together to create quality as perfection with the context of quality culture.

If you ask a question on a particular subject and the answer is not satisfying, the best response is none at all. If you're seeking more information or a different kind of information, ask for it by remaining silent.

There are plenty of articles and books that stress the use of silence in selling and negotiations, for a good reason. There comes the point in any sales pitch or negotiation when the other person should be talking, and there comes the moment when no one should be talking. It's hard to get to either point if you don't know when to remain silent.

Silence has many different applications depending on the situation you're in at the time. If you stop talking and start listening, you might learn something, and even if you don't, you'll have a chance to collect your thoughts. Silence is what keeps you from saying more than you need to and makes the other person say more than he means to. Knowing when to remain silent can strongly influence the impression you make on others.

The tactical use of silence serves one of the two purposes- it either lets the other person talk or forces the other person to talk.

Silence is a void, and people feel and an overwhelming need to fill it. When someone has finished speaking, let there be a slight pause, and don't play along by taking up your end of the dialogue. If used at the right moment,  this slight pause will lead them to elaborate more on what they said. Eventually, they may say what you want to hear.

A key piece of work was published in 1911 by a mechanical engineer, Frederick Winslow Taylor. He laid out the principles of scientific management, also called Taylorism, focusing on three goals:

1. To show the loss our country is suffering through inefficiencies in our day-to-day activities.
2. To convince the reader that the fix for this inefficiency lies in building unique management systems rather than searching for extraordinary men.
3. To prove that management is a science-based approach that relies on defined rules and fundamental principles of business operations.

A successful company is like an assembly of a puzzle. The puzzle pieces are people, products/services, processes, and resources that connect to form a unified image. Most organizations figure out all the puzzle pieces but one, the people. They offer generous pay and other attractive benefits hoping the last few missing pieces to their puzzle will surprisingly end up in their hands.

Now here's the problem. These companies do a great job describing the shape of this missing puzzle piece and hire specialists to sift through hundreds of pieces to find the right one. But what they should be focusing on instead is describing why finishing this puzzle is essential. If their vision aligns with the belief of an individual looking to be part of their company, the right person will be at their door in no time.

Many consider the late Kobe Bryant to be an iconic basketball player and an important puzzle piece to the Los Angeles Lakers dynasty. An interviewer once asked Kobe, "How did you recruit players on other teams to join you and the Lakers in contending for an NBA championship?" Kobe's response was simple. He asked potential fits, "Do you want to win a championship? And, are you willing to play hard until the clock runs out, or they need to carry you off the court? If yes, join us. If not, play somewhere else."

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, shared the tweets below to promote a career day at SpaceX. The company was looking to hire production staff, engineers, and support personnel to work on SpaceX's Starship spacecraft. See this CNBC article for more details.

Compare this approach from SpaceX and many other visionary companies to traditional recruiting methods, and you'll notice one key difference.
The pitches from Kobe Bryant and Elon Musk focus on answering, "why should a person consider joining them?" However, most of the job descriptions on LinkedIn and other job boards focus on "what are the job requirements, minimum experience, and skills required to get hired?"

To put it another way, the former focuses on building the right system to attract any man with the desire to learn, a strong work ethic, and basic skills. The latter focuses on finding the right man who checks most of the boxes for the job requirements.

In his book, The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, Matt Ridley draws similarities between the evolution of biological novelty and technological novelty. He focuses on the point that just as recombination of genetic sequences as a result of sex leads to biological novelty, the recombination of ideas resulting from trade leads to technological novelty. Innovation tends to happen when a bit of luck is involved, which is why liberal economies that indulge in enthusiastic free trade tend to do well.

Innovation is not a linear sequence of events executed according to a plan that leads to a new product or service. The purpose of a good strategic plan is to have insurance against future moodiness and inconsistencies. Innovation often happens unplanned, when you can think of all the random thoughts under your domain of expertise and then start experimenting to see if the ideas can turn into practical solutions. As you can see in the picture below, each idea experiment leads to three things:

1. More ideas due to failed experiments
2. Possible solutions that don't solve a problem on hand, but are great for solving future problems
3. Solution to solve an existing problem, in other words birth of a new product/service

The more you brainstorm ideas and experiment, the closer you are to being innovative. The process must happen at enormous speed, so you have a series of dots (failures) that don't connect yet, but are ready to be lined up if you need them for a future solution.

Google allows its employees to spend 20 percent of their time each week to work on projects that will help the company. For more than 70 years, 3M's unique 15 percent culture allows employees to experiment on ideas, test new technology, or find a new way to run a process.

When a company is experimenting on new ideas and goes a step further to patent them, it is more complex and expensive for their rivals to play in the same field. As an entrepreneur, this is frustrating because the original intent of patents is to share ideas with other creators and treat ideas with open knowledge. When companies go too far into intellectual property law to defend their monopoly, it blocks other innovations that intend to follow the same path but achieve a different goal.

Human beings have an inherent tendency to seek out novelty and challenges, extend and exercise their capacities, explore, and learn. In Daniel Pink's book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, he describes two types of tasks that occur in our workplace:

• Algorithmic task-follow a set of instructions down a single path to a conclusion
• Heuristic task- experiment with possibilities and devise a novel solution

A study conducted by McKinsey and Co. estimated that, on average, 30% of job growth from algorithmic work, while 70% comes from heuristic work. The reason- routine work can be outsourced or automated; artistic, empathic, nonroutine tasks cannot. Algorithmic tasks are easier to copy if you have access to the process knowledge. Algorithmic assignments are also clearly defined in process and policy documents. Thus, if the company can train an employee on the algorithmic task, it can also replace the employee by leveraging technology or outsourcing the work. On the other hand, heuristic tasks are harder to mimic because they include a surprise element of 'tacit knowledge.' Tacit knowledge is nothing but an archive of aha moments which usually never gets documented on paper or a patent.

The process of innovation requires a balance of analytical thinking- breaking down a process and understanding how each part contributes to the whole, and creative thinking- brainstorming ideas to solve a problem and freely experimenting to see which works best. A person cannot do both at the same time. Because an individual usually has a dominant way of thinking, it is challenging to get both the analytical and creative types to work within the same group.

The IDEA model to improve the outcomes and think creatively has four stages:

1. Ideate- create a list of all ideas possible, regardless of how crazy they sound at first.
2. Drain- step away from the problem and allow your subconscious mind to think and filter through the thoughts.
3. Elucidate- return to the problem and discuss feedback since the last meeting. Add, modify, combine or delete actions on the list.
4. Apply- test out and verify the feasibility of best ideas.

Doing less of "things that don't matter" so that you can focus on "things that do matter" is not laziness. It is hard to operate in such a fashion because our culture rewards hard work and sacrifices personal resources (mostly time) instead of effectiveness and efficiency.

The notion that the world is linear is a fallacy. Most managers think if employees spend 40 hours in front of a computer, they will produce 40 hours' worth of output. Employees believe if they stay at a job for two years, they'll get promoted. The truth is that outcomes are non-linear based on the quality of the work. It is because technology has leveled the playing field in the information age. The hierarchical model from the industrial age is not working in the modern workplace. It was introduced for operational decision-making and specialization of roles, not for adopting a carrot and stick model to move employees up the ladder.

Let's say you spend X hours at work to make Y dollars per year. You'll lose significantly to a modern-day knowledge worker who figures out how to create Y dollars by spending one-fourth of the time of X hours. You spending X+ n hours is not enough to catch up; the math doesn't work. In this case, it is unfair to label such efficient workers as 'lazy' because they now have three-fourths of X hours left to spend on things of their liking. It is even more unfair to assume that the employee who spent X+n hours is more productive than the employee who spent one-fourth of the time of X hours.

There is no doubt hard work is essential. But it is far more critical to decide on:

• Who do you want to work with?
• What do you want to work on?
• How do you want to approach your work?

People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy. -Seneca

Exceptional leaders can measure the results of their actions to the value created or a problem solved. Such an approach is far more challenging than the traditional project management approach of measuring the contributions in time and money spent.