If new ideas are the lifeblood of any thriving organisation-and, trust me, they are-managers must learn to revere, not merely tolerate, the people who come up with those ideas.
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just attach it to a new wagon.
All things being equal, people will do business with a friend; all things being unequal, people will still do business with a friend.
Today, if someone showed me a five-year plan, I’d toss out the pages detailing Years Three, Four and Five as pure fantasy Anyone who thinks he or she can evaluate business conditions five years from now, flunks.
Every discussion in a meeting has a diminishing curve of interest. The longer the discussion goes on, the fewer people will be interested in it.
Round numbers beg to be negotiated, usually by counteroffer round numbers. Odd numbers sound harder, firmer, less negotiable.
Concentrate on each task, whether trivial or crucial, as if it’s the only thing that matters.
Short-term can be terminal.
If you aren’t afraid to fail, then you probably don’t care enough about success.
People don’t plan to fail. They fail to plan.
Talk less – you will automatically learn more, hear more, see more – and make fewer blunders.
There are five top superstars in golf, 20 great stars, and 30 good ones. The rest should go and get jobs.
I am convinced that most companies don’t maximize their barter possibilities. Instead of aggressively reducing costs by trading their services with those of their suppliers, they seem content to pay top dollar for everything.
To me, Arnold was a pioneer in the spirit of Thomas Edison or Benjamin Franklin, while Tiger is a pioneer in the spirit of Bill Gates.
People retire to do what I do every day.
Fear of failure is at least as common as the desire for success. In fact, if harnessed properly, it can be the energy that drives the wheel.
Anger can be an effective negotiating tool, but only as a calculated act, never as a reaction.
If Thomas Edison had gone to business school, we would all be reading by larger candles.