In large organizations there are discrete functions. I do this; you do that. I swim in my lane; you swim in your lane. That can be very effective for certain processes and in certain stable conditions. But it doesn't work in unstable conditions.

Questions are often more effective than statements in moving others. Or to put it more appropriately, since the research shows that when the facts are on your side, questions are more persuasive than statements, don't you think you should be pitching more with questions?

If you understand the independent worker, the self-employed professional, the freelancer, the e-lancer, the temp, you understand how work and business in the U.S. operate today.

One of the best predictors of ultimate success in either sales or non-sales selling isn't natural talent or even industry expertise, but how you explain your failures and rejections.

Typically, if you reward something, you get more of it. You punish something, you get less of it. And our businesses have been built for the last 150 years very much on that kind of motivational scheme.

In economic terms, we've always thought of work as a disutility - as something you do to get something else. Now it's increasingly a utility - something that's valuable and worthy in its own right.