People say that ideas aren't important in business. Okay, people say, maybe an idea for a new product, but the rest is all execution, making it happen. Not so. As the strategy revolution demonstrated, ideas can be the key tools for making your business competitive.

What got repressed-sometimes viciously repressed-by the strategy-concept makers, consultants, and data gatherers was a consciousness of people and their importance in the creation and execution of any strategy.

People believe that management consultants are mostly useless parasites. Up until about 1980 it was consultants more than anyone else who came up with the critical concepts behind strategy. The history of strategy suggests there are lots of things consultants can do for a company that the company can't typically do for itself.

The best discipline, maybe the only discipline that really works, is self- discipline.