The first key idea is that when you have a challenge for which measuring progress is hard, the ability to adapt is just as important as the ability to plan.

The tricks of today are the truths of tomorrow.

What was most important wasn't knowing the future — it was knowing how to react appropriately to the information available at each point in time.

To understand the future, you do not need technoautistic jargon, obsession with “killer apps,” these sort of things. You just need the following: some respect for the past, some curiosity about the historical record, a hunger for the wisdom of the elders, and a grasp of the notion of “heuristics,” these often unwritten rules of thumb that are so determining of survival. In other words, you will be forced to give weight to things that have been around, things that have survived.

If out of reading this book you get just one thing — an increased tendency to think always in terms of other people’s point of view, and see things from their angle — if you get that one thing out of this book, it may easily prove to be one of the building blocks of your career.

If she is agile — if she welcomes and responds to questions that may uncover what is in the decisionmakers’ minds, while remaining alert to opportunities to use a question as a springboard to advance a key point.

knowing how to deal with change effectively is a primary requirement for living successfully in perhaps the most exciting time in all of human history

Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.

the key is to plan, envision, and articulate what you see in the future both for yourself and for your employees. Because if you don’t articulate it — I mean, write it down, clearly, so others can understand it —

What you do today can improve all your tomorrows

Live in the world of tomorrow.
Surround yourself only with what’s brand new and upcoming.
That’s where life is made.
It’s the most optimistic environment, full of hope and promises.

Of the three, the third trait — the idea that epidemics can rise or fall in one dramatic moment — is the most important, because it is the principle that makes sense of the first two and that permits the greatest insight into why modern change happens the way it does.

In forming your plan for your future you need to distinguish three different questions: What is possible? What is likely to happen? What is desirable to have happen?

This is not a book for the wild-haired crazies your company keeps in a corner. It is a book for you, your boss, and your employees, because the best future available to us is a future where you contriubute your true self and your best work. Are you up for that?