If that title caught your attention, it was meant to. Let me begin by saying I am not advocating that businesses do away with measurements, especially customer- and quality-related measurements.

Got your attention by what seems a bizarre claim?

When you get a cut, blood starts to flow from the wound. But very quickly, complex biochemical processes spring into action, creating a scaffolding of molecules to block the hole, and then building up an impervious clot to staunch the flow.

Harmony in the workplace is highly desirable, but what happens when some workers depend on biological brains, while others need computers to guide their behavior?

Recently I was asked by the sales manager of a company if I could reach his staff with a message he had been trying to “beat into their heads for months” (his words, not mine).

Prizes have long been used to induce solutions to national challenges. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, prizes yielded vaccine inoculation, lifeboats, a method of calculating longitude at sea, new food-preservation techniques, and more.

I first came across this notion of the invisibility of good leadership back in 1969. I had just started working in the laboratory of a chemical company based in Hamburg, and I was given the task of learning how to glue things together.