Michael K. Simpson

People have known for thousands of years that oil was abundant on Alaska's North Slope, a vast tundra, flat and treeless, on and on and on, from the foothills of the Brooks Mountain Range to the Arctic Ocean, an endless, unchanging landscape bigger than Idaho.

Leadership is not about a title or a designation. It's about impact, influence and inspiration. Impact involves getting results, influence is about spreading the passion you have for your work, and you have to inspire team-mates and customers.

The way that Dickens structured his books has a form that we most readily recognize now from, say, the great T.V. series, like 'The Wire' or 'The Sopranos.' There's one central plot line, but then from that spin off all kinds of subplots.