All economic activity is by definition “high risk.” And defending yesterday – that is, not innovating – is far more risky than making tomorrow.
Objectives can be compared to a compass bearing by which a ship navigates. A compass bearing is firm, but in actual navigation, a ship may veer off its course for many miles. Without a compass bearing, a ship would neither find its port nor be able to estimate the time required to get there.
I find more and more executives less and less well informed about the outside world, if only because they believe that the data on the computer printouts are ipso facto information.
A man should never be appointed into a managerial position if his vision focuses on people’s weaknesses rather than on their strengths.
The key to greatness is to look for people’s potential and spend time developing it.
Culture eats Christianity for breakfast.
The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.
Business purpose and business mission are so rarely given adequate thought is perhaps the most important cause of business frustration and failure.
Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.
A fundamental responsibility of leadership is make sure that everybody knows the mission, understands it, lives it.
Far too much reorganization goes on all the time. Organizitis is like a spastic colon.
It is willingness of people to give of themselves over and above the demands of the job that distinguishes the great from the merely adequate.
Since we live in an age of innovation, a practical education must prepare a man for work that does not yet exist and cannot yet be clearly defined.
The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.
Adequacy is the enemy of excellence.
Most Americans do not know what their strengths are. When you ask them, they look at you with a blank stare, or they respond in terms of subject knowledge, which is the wrong answer.
Success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know themselves – their strengths, their values, and how they best perform.
Once the facts are clear the decisions jump out at you.
The better a man is, the more mistakes he will make, for the more new things he will try.
We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.