“Good managers have a bias for action.”
“Celebrate what you want to see more of.”
“Communication is everyone's panacea for everything.”
“Give a lot, expect a lot, and if you don't get it, prune.”
“Train everyone lavishly, you can't overspend on training.”
“If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down the shade.”
“Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.”
“If your company has a clean-desk policy, the company is nuts and you're nuts to stay there.”
“Excellent firms don't believe in excellence -- only in constant improvement and constant change.”
“The simple act of playing positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity.”
“The best leaders... almost without exception and at every level, are master users of stories and symbols.”
“Winners must learn to relish change with the same enthusiasm and energy that we have resisted it in the past.”
“All business success rests on something labeled a sale, which at least momentarily weds company and customer.”
“The magic formula that successful businesses have discovered is to treat customers like guests and employees like people.”
“We found that the most exciting environments, that treated people very well, are also tough as nails. There is no bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo... excellent companies provide two things simultaneously: tough environments and very supportive environments.”
“Five daily newspapers arrive in my California driveway. The New York times and the Wall Street Journal are supplemented by three local papers. As for magazines, I read, or at least skim, Business Week, Forbes, The Economist, INC; Industry Week, Fortune. Other subscriptions include Sales and Marketing Management, Modern Health Care, Progressive Grocer, High Tech Business, and Slaon Management Review from MIT. I religiously read Business Tokyo, Asia Week, and Far Eastern Economic Review. I glance at Newsweek and Time ... but I devour the New Republic, Policy Review, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Monthly, and Public Interest. How about books? A dozen or more each month.”