Quote collection
592 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I no longer think that learning how to manage people, especially subordinates, is the most important for executives to learn. I am teaching above all else, how to manage oneself."
"My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions."
"What we need is an entrepreneurial society in which innovation and entrepreneurship are normal, steady and continuous."
"The greatest challenge to organizations is the balance between continuity and change. You need both. At different times, the balance is slightly more over here, or slightly more over there, but you need both. And balance is basically the greatest task in leadership. Organizations have to have continuity, and yet if there is not enough new challenge, not enough change, they become empty bureaucracies, awfully fast."
"Your first and foremost job as a leader is to take charge of your own energy and then help to orchestrate the energy of those around you."
"Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice."
"Objectives are not fate; they are direction. They are not commands; they are commitments. They do not determine the future; they are a means to mobilize resources and energies of the business for the making of the future."
"It's more important to do the right thing than to do things right."
"The correct assumption is that what individuals have learned by age twenty-one will begin to become obsolete five to ten years later and will have to be replaced-or at least refurbished-by new learning, new skills, new knowledge."
"Trees die from the top”. No one should ever become a strategist unless he or she is willing to have his or her character serve as a model for subordinates"
"It’s up to you to carve out your place, to know when to change course, and to keep yourself engaged and productive during a work life that may span some 50 years."
"What's absolutely unforgivable is the financial benefit top management people get for laying off people. There's no excuse for it. No justification. No explanation. This is morally and socially unforgivable, and we'll pay a very nasty price."
"People in any organization, including bureaucrats and politicians, are always attached to the obsolete; the obsolescent; the things that should have worked but didn't; the things that once were productive and no longer are."
"Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility."
"Suppliers and especially manufacturers have market power because they have information about a product or a service that the customer does not and cannot have, and does not need if he can trust the brand. This explains the profitability of brands."
"Strong people have strong weaknesses."
"Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement."
"We know nothing about motivation. All we can do is write books about it."
"The largest 100 corporations hold 25 percent of the worldwide productive assets, which in turn control 75 percent of international trade and 98 percent of all foreign direct investment.The multinational corporation...puts the economic decision beyond the effective reach of the political process and its decision-makers, national governments."
"Business has only two basic functions - marketing and innovation."