Quote collection
592 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don't spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don't need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop"
"What is the major problem? It is fundamentally the confusion between effectiveness and efficiency that stands between doing the right things and doing things right. There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all."
"Trust is congruence between what you say and what you do."
"Listening is not a skill; it is a discipline."
"People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year."
"The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself."
"Focus on opportunities, not problems."
"Innovative efforts should never report to line managers charged with responsibility for ongoing operations. The new project is an infant and will remain one for the foreseeable future, and infants belong in the nursery. The 'adults', that is, the executives in charge of existing businesses or products will have neither the time nor understanding for the infant."
"To make a living is no longer enough. Work also has to make a life."
"There is nothing worse than doing the wrong thing well."
"Do first things first, and second things not at all."
"You cannot build performance on weaknesses. You can build only on strengths."
"In a few hundred years, when the history of our time will be written from a long-term perspective, it is likely that the most important event historians will see is not technology, not the Internet, not e-commerce. It is an unprecedented change in the human condition. For the first time - literally - substantial and rapidly growing numbers of people have choices. For the first time, they will have to manage themselves. And society is totally unprepared for it."
"Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes."
"Now that knowledge is taking the place of capital as the driving force in organizations worldwide, it is all too easy to confuse data with knowledge and information technology with information."
"No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it."
"It's amazing how many things busy people are doing that never will be missed."
"Large organizations cannot be versatile. A large organization is effective through its mass rather than through its agility. Fleas can jump many times their own height, but not an elephant."
"Every time you do something that is important, write down what you expect will happen."
"Most leaders don't need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop."