F
OREWORD
OU CAN HAVE THE BEST technology, the most innovative
marketing campaign, or the latest product that goes viral—and it
Y
can all disappear overnight like dying fireworks. It can all be
copied by another competitor or become instantly obsolete in the wake
of something new and better.
In this world, all business success is interim. If you’re a leader, the
only competitive advantage you have is that combination of hearts and
brains—yours and your people’s—that can produce success again and
again. The only assets you can depend on are human beings. The air they
live on is passion, high purpose, and psychological, and when they don’t
get what they need, neither do you.
The fact is, people now need different things than they used
to—particularly young people. They need to be leaders themselves.
They need tomake things happen. They deeply need to be able to trust.
They don’t need a career—they need a mission. A career is a pro-
fession; a mission is a cause. A career asks, “What’s in it for me?” A
mission asks, “How can I make a difference?”
And your job now—your mission—is to ignite that kind of fire in
yourself and your team. This book, written by my friends and col-
leagues, will help you ignite that fire. It’s about leaving behind an ash
heap of assumptions that used to work but now produce stagnation, and
moving on to newparadigms that will spark the passion of your people.
Stephen R. Covey, my father, used to say, “We see the world not as it is,
but as we are—as we are conditioned to be.” As you read this book, you’ll
be startled out of your old conditioning by a whole new set of
possibilities. Instead of just being a leader, you can make every-body a
leader. Instead of just doing more with less, you can do infinitely more
