As a technical non-executive, it was hard for me to connect with some of what they were saying, but I did find some general principles that was thought provoking for me: the Permission Paradox and the 20/80 Principle of Performance were especially useful.

One essay that is mentioned in the book is Malcolm Gladwell's The Talent Myth which talks about the ways that various companies have failed in spite of or even because of an overabundance of talented people. It's an interesting version of the talent versus process debate. What Citrin and Smith say in response to Gladwell is that those companies may have had talent, but they didn't know how to manage it.