Quote collection
592 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"What people in business think they know about the customer and market is likely to be more wrong than right...the customer rarely buys what the business thinks it sells him."
"Economists talk about profit motive, but nothing motivates modern man more than a chance to avoid taxes!"
"We no longer even understand the question whether change is by itself good or bad, ...We start out with the axiom that it is the norm. We do not see change as altering the order... We see change as being order itself - indeed the only order we can comprehend today is a dynamic, a moving, a changing one."
"If something fails despite being carefully planned, carefully designed, and conscientiously executed, that failure often bespeaks underlying change and, with it, opportunity."
"Profit is not a cause but a result-"
"The computer, being a mechanical moron, can handle only quantifiable data."
"All companies are service companies; some also manufacture products."
"The world economy is not yet a community--not even an economic community...Yet the existence of the "global shopping center" is a fact that cannot be undone. The vision of an economy for all will not be forgotten again."
"A business enterprise must continue beyond the lifetime of the individual or of the generation to be capable of producing its contributions to economy and to society."
"No matter how deeply wedded one may be to the free enterprise system (and I, for one, am wedded for life), one has to accept the need for positive government; one has to consider government action on a sizable scale as desirable rather than as a necessary evil."
"In the knowledge economy everyone is a volunteer, but we have trained our managers to manage conscripts."
"Absolute size by itself is no indicator of success and achievement, let alone of managerial competence. Being the right size is."
"No society can function as a society, unless it gives the individual member social status and function, and unless the decisive social power is legitimate."
"The rule should be to minimize the need for people to get together to accomplish anything."
"If you want it, measure it. If you can't measure it, forget it."
"[Management] has authority only as long as it performs."
"In book subjects a student can only do a student's work. All that can be measured is how well he learns, rather than how well he performs. All he can show is promise."
"There are companies that are good at improving what they're already doing. There are companies that are good at extending what they're doing. And finally there are companies that are good at innovation. Every large company has to be able to do all three - improve, extend, and innovate - simultaneously."
"Mother Teresa's numerical results were not her greatest contribution. Instead, she made the world-and especially India-conscious of compassion."
"The large organization has to learn to innovate, or it won't survive."