Conquerors tend not to enjoy a laudable place in the history books, but they do offer lessons in how to get more without settling for less. Pilots refer to PNR—the point of no return. This technical term in air navigation refers to the point in a flight at which, due to fuel consumption, a plane no longer has the capacity to return to its home base. To inspire innovation and reinvention, businesses often face a PNR too, a point in their history when they need to metaphorically burn the boats that brought them.

           If you played sports in school, did the coach play everyone equally? Create an egalitarian form of governance in which each person had a say? Or, did the stars, the one who had the innate athletic ability and drive to put it into action receive a disproportionate amount of playing time and the coach’s attention? If you won many games, I suspect the second scenario. Fairness demands each person receive an equal opportunity to succeed, not equal treatment along the way.