Phones and soundtracks and Muzak and fountains replace genuine and unpredictable human contact with a seamless soundtrack from a bad movie and a cliche that makes us believe we must all be happy.
As a mother, I work hard every day and I expect that work to be recognized and appreciated. Because I work for and with human beings, sometimes they’re grateful and sometimes they aren’t.
In business, staying focused requires that you turn most opportunities down.
Making a company fit to sell may be the only way to ensure you never need a buyer.
Most executives I know are so action-oriented, or action-addicted, that time for reflection is the first casualty of their success.
If the company depends entirely on you – your creativity, ingenuity, inspiration, salesmanship or charisma – nobody will want to buy it. The risk and the dependency are too great.
I hate people walking down the street listening to the soundtrack of their lives which responds to them but not their setting. I hate the overspill of sound which metro and subway riders are oblivious to because they notice no one and nothing around them.
Words are how people think. When you misuse words, you diminish your ability to think clearly and truthfully.
What do you want your business to do? Make money, of course. To pay for people and supplies, to be able to grow.
The best remote companies I’ve seen do almost everything online, via email and telephone. But they also get together face to face on a regular basis.
Once you have power, you are inevitably surrounded by people who have their own agendas and will tell you whatever advances them.
Noise is a buffer, more effective than cubicles or booth walls.
Most people have their best ideas when they take their minds away from problems they’re trying to solve.
When we care about people, we care less about money, and when we care about money, we care less about people.
Any fool can buy talent; only real leaders develop it.
In our house, Mother’s Day is every day. Father’s Day, too. In our house, parents count. They do important work and that work matters. One day just doesn’t cut for us.
One of the sad truths about leadership is that, the higher up the ladder you travel, the less you know.
We treasure what we can measure.
Silence is the language of inertia.
You cannot fix a problem that you refuse to acknowledge.
Business is not a science; it is not susceptible to experiments that can be controlled and replicated. Everything in business is too unpredictable for that – every business, employee, product, market is different and keeps changing.