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Forget All The Conventional 'rules' But One. There Is One Golden Rule: Stick To Topics You Deeply Care About And Don't Keep Your Passion Buttoned Inside Your Vest. An Audience's Biggest Turn-on Is The Speaker's Obvious Enthusiasm. If You Are Lukewarm About The Issue, Forget It!

-Tom Peters

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Forget All The Conventional

Tom Peters

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Forget All The Conventional 'rules' But One. There Is One Golden Rule: Stick To Topics You Deeply Care About And Don't Keep Your Passion Buttoned Inside Your Vest. An Audience's Biggest Turn-on Is The Speaker's Obvious Enthusiasm. If You Are Lukewarm About The Issue, Forget It!

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Community. A Friend Started A Real Estate Brokerage A Few Years Ago. By The Time She'd Added Her Second Employee, She Was A Pillar Of Her 35,000-person Community. No Rule Says That Only The Local Banker Or Car Dealer Can Organize The Program To Raise Supplemental Funds For The Public Library Or Send The High School Band On A Well-earned Special Trip. Participating In Community Affairs, With Time More Than Dollars, Is Good Business From Day One. It Gets Your Name Around, Adds To Your Distinctiveness, And, Best Of All, Makes You An Attractive Employer (which Is The Key To Sustained Success).

The Delivery And Presentation Media Are Important, And Each Format Has Its Advantages And Disadvantages, But Ultimately I Just Want To Read What I Want To Read, When And Where I Want.

Organizations Exist To Serve. Period. Leaders Live To Serve. Period.

Leaders Trust Their Guts. "intuition" Is One Of Those Good Words That Has Gotten A Bad Rap. For Some Reason, Intuition Has Become A "soft" Notion. Garbage! Intuition Is The New Physics. It's An Einsteinian, Seven-sense, Practical Way To Make Tough Decisions. Bottom Line, Circa 2001 To 2010: The Crazier The Times Are, The More Important It Is For Leaders To Develop And To Trust Their Intuition.

Listen To Everyone. Ideas Come From Everywhere

Knowing When To Take Your Losses Is An Essential Part Of Eventual Success.

How Do You Achieve Excellence?...stop Doing Non-excellent Stuff!

You Can't Think Your Way Out Of A Box; You've Got To Act.

Remember: You Are The Only Human Being In The World Who Can Help This Particular Customer At This Particular Moment In Time.

I Would Not Be Surprised To See Interesting New Forms Of Expression And Literary Genres Develop As The E-book Movement Matures.

Anybody Who Is An Entrepreneur Is A Person Who Essentially Has Impaired Judgment. The Odds Of Success Are Zilch. This Valley Is Loaded To The Gills With A Whole Lot Of Totally Insane People Who Honest To God Believe That They Can Be The Next Bill Gates Or The Next Scott Mcnealy. And That Is Genuinely Stupid.

Effective Listening Is A Professional Achievement-achieved Only Through Hard Work.

Effective Listening

I Think It's Wonderful To Save The World, But You Need To Be Part Of The World, Too.

For The Blue-collar Worker, The Driving Force Behind Change Was Factory Automation Using Programmable Machine Tools. For The Office Worker, It's Office Automation Using Computer Technology: Enterprise-resource-planning Systems, Groupware, Intranets, Extranets, Expert Systems, The Web, And E-commerce.

Leaders Do Stuff That Matters.

Quality Involves Living The Message Of The Possibility Of Perfection And Infinite Improvement, Living It Day In And Day Out, Decade By Decade.

They Say Plan It. I Say Do It.

I Found Myself Declaiming, Full Flower, For An Hour On The "utmost Importance And Urgency" Of Blogging, Telling Him In No Uncertain Terms That, Especially In A High-end Niche Business, Blogging Is "the Premier Way" To Have "intimate Conversations" With His Clients. Funny Thing, I Believe It!

Statistically And Emotionally, I Believe That The Way I Can Be Of Help To Society Is By Doing What I Know And What I've Been Good At.

One Simply Cannot Pay Tribute To Stephen Covey Without Saying At The Outset That He Was A Lovely Human Being.

The Race Will Go To The Curious, The Slightly Mad, And Those With An Un-satiated Passion For Learning And Dare-deviltry.

Change Is Not So Much About Being The First One To Embrace A New Idea, But Being The First To Forget An Old One

The Drive For Control, Or The Perception Thereof, Is Truly The Strongest Force In Human Nature.

Divas Do It, Golfers Do It, Pilots Do It, Violists Do It, Sprinters Do It, Soldiers Do It, Surgeons Do It, Astronauts Do It...only Business People Think It Isn't Necessary To Train.

The Manager, In Today's World, Doesn't Get Paid To Be A Steward Of Resources, A Favored Term Not So Many Years Ago. He Or She Gets Paid For One And Only One Thing: To Make Things Better (incrementally And Dramatically), To Change Things, To Act - Today.

Usage Tends To Be Global, While Funding Tends Tobe Local. When We Allow It To Happen, Usage Of A Digital Library Is Remarkably Diverse And Widespread.

Excellent Firms Don't Believe In Excellence - Only In Constant Improvement And Constant Change.

Appreciation, Applause, Approval, Respect - We All Love It!

I Am My Clients. I Am Defined By Who I Do Business With.

One Reason (among Many) That Women May Well Take Over The World Of "virtual Enterprises" Is That They Seem To Have A Greater Instinct For Networking. And The Unfettered-by-machismo Males Who Have Taken To Networking Will Do Better Than Those Who Shun It As "sissy Stuff." But Truth Is, It Has Always Been The Age Of "networkers"; And In An Era Where Organizations Depend More And More On Tenuously Connected Outsiders To Get The Job Done, It Will Only Become So.

Train Everyone Lavishly. You Can't Overspend On Training.

The World Has Not Just "turned Upside Down". It Is Turning In Every Which Way At An Accelerating Pace.

There Is No Such Thing As A Minor Lapse Of Integrity

Have You Set High Standards In The Past That Make It Clear What Level Of Performance You Demand?

When You Choose A Managerial Path, You Are Choosing To Devote Your Life To People. Period.

Want To Accomplish Something, Any-damn-thing? Sharpen Your Political Skills!

If A Window Of Opportunity Appears, Don't Pull Down The Shade.

I Wrote The Book Based On A Blog That I Keep. I Also Tweet. I Don't Think That For An Incredibly Old Fart I'm Totally Behind The Power Curve. I Really Believe That The Essentials Of Human Relationships Remain The Same.

Collections Of Books And Other Documents, Either Printed Or Electronic, Are A Form Of Congregation.

Take Someone New And Weird To Lunch Today

An Ability To Embrace New Ideas, Routinely Challenge Old Ones, And Live With Paradox Will Be The Effective Leader's Premier Trait.

Champions Are Pioneers, And Pioneers Get Shot At. The Companies That Get The Most From Champions, Therefore, Are Those That Have Rich Support Network So Their Pioneers Will Flourish. This Point Is So Important It's Hard To Overstress. No Support Systems, No Champions. No Champions, No Innovations.

Support Systems

The Idea Of Intimately Entwining With Customers [to Get Ideas] Is An Idea Whose Time Has Come.

The Most Important And Visible Outcropping Of The Action Bias In Excellent Companies Is Their Willingness To Try Things Out, To Experiment. If You Wait Until You Believe You Are Safe, Sure To Be Without Occasional Foolish Feelings, You've Most Likely Waited Too Long.

It Doesn't Matter What Product Or Service You're Offering; There Is Unlimited Ability To Improve The Quality Of Anything.

The Populations Of Most Cities Around The World Continue To Grow. The Reasonspeople Congregate In Cities Are Various And Complex, And The Dawn Of The Digital Age Has Not Put Much Of Adamper On The Human Urge To Congregate.

Books Were Rare,expensive, Time-consuming To Create And Copy, And Difficult To Transport. That Is Why Collections Ofprint-based Books Developed Around Centers Of Religious Belief, Learning, And Wealth. It Was Cheaper Andeasier For People To Come To The Collection Than For The Collection, Or Parts Of The Collection, To Go To Thepeople.

The Best Leaders... Almost Without Exception And At Every Level, Are Master Users Of Stories And Symbols.

Rewards Should Go To Teams As A Whole.

Communication Is Everyone's Panacea For Everything.

Good Communication

Customers Perceive Service In Their Own Unique, Idiosyncratic, Emotional, Irrational, End-of-the-day, And Totally Human Terms. Perception Is All There Is!

Who, Precisely, Are Your Dreamers? Are Their Dreams In Technicolor? Do You Allow Their Most Outrageous Dreams To Be Seen In Public?

I Think Economics, Content, And The Ability To Interact With Content In New And Different Ways Are What Will Drive The Adoption Of E-books.

Authors And Publishers Want Fair Compensation And A Means Of Protecting Content Through Digital Rights Management. Vendors And Technology Companies Want New Markets For E-book Reading Devices And Other Hardware. End-users Most Of All Want A Wide Range And Generous Amount Of High-quality Content For Free Or At Reasonable Costs. Like End-users, Libraries Want Quality, Quantity, Economy, And Variety As Well As Flexible Business Models.

Every Managerial Act Must Be Seen As An Unequivocal Support For Urgency In Pursuit Of Constant Testing, Change, And Improvement.

Quite Simply, No Matter How Hard You Try, No Matter How "open" You Are, You'll End Up Surrounded By "yes People." It's Hard Not To Believe People Who Are Repeating Your Own Ideas. Resist The Temptation.

My Real Bottom-line Hypothesis Is That Nobody Has A Sweet Clue What They’re Doing. Therefore You Better Be Trying Stuff At An Insanely Rapid Pace. You Want To Be Screwing Around With Nearly Everything. Relentless Experimentation Was Probably Important In The 1970s-now It’s Do Or Die.

I Endorse A Lot Of People - Sometimes People Say I Endorse Too Many Books. And My Response Has Always Been The Same: If I Can Get One Case Study That Can Give Me One Good Idea That I Can Implement For $25, Or For These Days One-third Of That On Kindle, I've Gotten A Very Good Deal.

Treat The Customer As An Appreciating Asset.

Your Calendar Never Lies. All We Have Is Our Time. The Way We Spend Our Time Is Our Priorities, Is Our Strategy. Your Calendar Knows What You Really Care About. Do You?

A Completely Free Library Is As Rare As A Truly Free Lunch.

I Used To Be Skeptical When Educators And Technologists Predicted That We May Be Entering A New Era Of Oral Culture, In Which Audible Information Will Be At Least As Important As Visible Information. Now That I Have Adopted Into My Own Daily Life A Device That Makes Music And Spoken-word Files Easy To Access From Anywhere, I Have Tempered My Skepticism.

South Africa Has All The Tools To Compete In The New Global Village - An Eager Workforce, Ready To Take On Any Challenge.

It's Not Enough To Be Close To The Customer. You've Got To Be Glued To The Customer.

The Little People Will Get Even, Which Is One Of A Thousand Reasons Why They Are Not Little People At All. If You're A Jerk As A Leader, You Will Be Torpedoed. And Usually It Won't Be By Your Vice Presidents; It Will Be On The Loading Dock At 3am When No Supervisors Are Around.

Some People Have Argued That Listening To A Work Of Literature Does Not Really Promote Literacy In The Same Way That Reading Does. Having Tried This For Several Months, However, I Can Report From The Trenches That, For Me, Immersive Listening Is As Intellectually Challenging, Stimulating, And Rewarding As Immersive Reading.

Now That Gigabytes Of Accessible, Malleable Information Can Be Carried In One's Pocket, We Probably Will Start To See Some Widespread Shifts And Trends In How And Where People Interact With Digital Documents.

Business Is About People. It's About Passion. It's About Bold Ideas, Bold Small Ideas Or Bold Large Ideas.

Are Your Customers Saying Wow?

Work On Your Story! He/she Who Has The Best Story Wins! In Life! In Business! The White House!

Every Collection Reflects The Ideas Andvalues And Interests Of The Individual Or Group Who Developed The Collection.

Swipe From The Best, Then Adapt.

Innovation And Business

The Best Kept Secret In The Global Economy Today Is This: When Your Service Is Awesome You Get So Stinking Rich You Have To Buy New Bags To Carry All The Money Home.

Best Kept Secrets

Effective Visions Are Lived In Details, Not Broad Strokes.

All White-collar Work Is Project Work. The Single Salient Fact That Touches All Of Our Lives Is That Work Is Being Reinvented.

The Good News - And It Is Largely Good News - Is That Everyone Has A Chance To Stand Out. Everyone Has A Chance To Learn, Improve, And Build Up Their Skills. Everyone Has A Chance To Be A Brand Worthy Of Remark

Only Those Who Constantly Retool Themselves Stand A Chance Of Staying Employed In The Years Ahead.

The Magic Formula That Successful Businesses Have Discovered Is To Treat Customers Like Guests And Employees Like People.

Mastery Is Great, But Even That Is Not Enough. You Have To Be Able To Change Course Without A Bead Of Sweat, Or Remorse.

Fact Is, The Work Place To A Great Extent Is "where We Live." We Need Star Accountants. Boffo Saleswomen. Over-the-top Creatives In Marketing And New Product Development. And So On. But, Since We're Effectively Talking About "where We Live," Good Sense And Good Business And "good" Engagement Throughout The "supply Chain," From Vendor's Vendor To Customer's Customer, We Would Benefit Mightily-including On The P & L-if We Insisted (!) On: "pleasant." "caring." "engaged."

Obviously, Despite Hard Work And Heroic Efforts, Many Dreams Don't Come True. But If We Don't Dare To Dream And Then Throw Muscle, Heart, And Soul Into Making The Dream Come True, Then Wow Projects-and All Of The Emotional, Intellectual, Spiritual, And Financial Riches That They Bring Will Surely Not Be Our Lot In Life!

I Find Digital Content Much Easier And More Rewarding To Interact With On Screen Than Printed On Paper.

Cost Does Not Equal Value... And Low Cost Parts Decrease Brand Equity For A Very Long Time.

We Are No Doubt In The Great Age Of The Brand.

The Top Athletes Are Consummate Pros Who Work Obsessively At Their Craft. Approach Yours The Same Way.

Musing On The Phrase 'waste Of Time.' So Much More Complex Than It Appears. Many 'wastes Of Time' Small Talk, Daydreaming Are Imperatives.

If Not Excellence, What? If Not Excellence Now, When?

The 10 Or 12 Artists I Have Known Really Well All My Life Are At Least As Competitive As Professional Athletes. They May Express It In Slightly Different Terms, But You Look At The Jackson Pollocks Et Al., And They Are As Interested In Wall Space In The Galleries As Joe Montana Is In The Percentage Of Completed Passes. So The Notion That Symphonic Conducting, Or Stage Play, Or Pure Art, Is Not A Competitive Business Is Real Bullshit.

Because Nearly All Digital Libraries Are Tied To Bricks-and-mortar Institutions, The Funding Base Tends To Be Quite Localized.

Bricks And Mortar

Digital Ink Technology Holds Substantial Promise In Terms Of Legibility, Portability, And Power Consumption, But I Am Less Confident About The Communication Aspect.

I Believe In The Age Of The Internet, Facebook And Twitter, That Relationships Are Everything.

It's Relatively Simple. If We're Not Getting More, Better, Faster Than They Are Getting More, Better, Faster, Then We're Getting Less, No Better Or More Worse.

If, As I Anticipate, A Wide Array Of Personal, Portable Information/communication Devices Becomes Increasingly Important And Widespread For Information-intensive Users, It Will Be A Major Challenge For Libraries To Adapt Their Content And Services To Such A Diverse Technological Environment.

People Of All Demographic Categories And Geographic Regions Will Access A Good Digital Library.

The Whole Secret To Our Success Is Being Able To Con Ourselves Into Believing That We're Going To Change The World Because Statistically We Are Unlikely To Do It.

The New Idea Either Finds A Champion Or It Dies. No Ordinary Involvement With A New Idea Provides The Energy Required To Cope With The Indifference And Resistance That Change Provokes.

Screw-ups Are The Mark Of Excellence.

I Still Read Quite A Few Printed Books, But If Something Is Available In Digital Format I Do Not Print It Before I Read It.

If You're A Leader, Your Whole Reason For Living Is To Help Human Beings Develop - To Really Develop People And Make Work A Place That's Energetic And Exciting And A Growth Opportunity, Whether You're Running A Housekeeping Department Or Google. I Mean, This Is Not Rocket Science.

My Half-baked Reading Of History Is That We Continue To Go Through These Waves Of Entrepreneurial Explosion Followed By Merger Mania And Consolidation. Out Of That Come Big Sluggish Companies That Eventually Collapse Under The Weight Of What They've Created, And Are Killed Off By The Next Wave Of Entrepreneurs.

The Company's Most Urgent Task Is To Learn To Welcome, Beg For, Demand - Innovation From Everyone.

Creating In All Employees The Awareness That Their Best Efforts Are Essential And That They Will Share In The Rewards Of The Company's Success.

Skill At Creating, Exploiting, And Exiting Crucial Alliances Beats Ownership Of Fixed Assets

You Have To Stand Out If You Want To Move Up.

The Simple Act Of Paying Positive Attention To People Has A Great Deal To Do With Productivity.

Productive Work

Give A Lot, Expect A Lot, And If You Don't Get It, Prune.

A Vibrant, Rich, Growing Corpus Of Public-domain Books Is A Vital Public Good - Similar To Parks, The Infrastructure Of Basic Services, And Other Hallmarks Of Any Advanced Society.

Ready, Fire, Aim. Do It! Make It Happen! Action Counts. No One Ever Sat Their Way To Success.

Without Exception, The Dominance And Coherence Of Culture Proved To Be An Essential Quality Of The Excellent Companies.

Never, Ever Rest On Your Laurels. Today's Laurels Are Tomorrow's Compost.

Don't Settle For Less Than Is Possible.

The Difference Between Great And Average Is, Mostly, Having The Imagination And Zeal To Re-create Yourself Daily.

Stellar Teams Are Invariably Made Up Of Quirky Individuals Who Typically Rub Each Other Raw, But They Figure Out - With The Spiritual Help Of A Gifted Leader - How To Be Their Peculiar Selves And How To Win Championships As A Team...at The Same Time.

Life Is Too Short For Non-wow Projects.

Life Is Too Short

But There's No Substitute For Getting Smarter Faster. And The Way You Get Smarter Is To Screw Around Vigorously. Try Stuff. See What Works. See What Fails Miserably. Learn. Rinse. Repeat.

The Dominant Culture In Most Big Companies Demands Punishment For A Mistake, No Matter How Useful, Small, Invisible.

Almost All Quality Improvement Comes Via Simplification Of Design, Manufacturing... Layout, Processes, And Procedures.

Public Speaking Is A Skill That Can Be Studied, Polished, Perfected. Not Only Can You Get Good At It, You Can Get Damn Good At It And It Makes A Heck Of A Difference.

Public Speaking

If You Love Your Company And Love What You Do, You Will Serve Your Customers Better-period!

I Don't Read Many Business Books. I Read Good Fiction. Business Is About People, So My Favorite Business Books Are Anything By Dickens.

There Are Few Things That Will Take You Further In Life, Than Your Ability To Make A Good Presentation.

Many Flagship State Universities Have Wonderful Digital Libraries That Are Accessed By People Around The World. In Future, If Not Current, Budget Crises, Trustees, Board Members, And Administrators May Wonder Why These State Institutions - With An Articulated Primary Clientele Of Students, Faculty, And Staff Members And A Secondary Clientele Of All Citizens Of The State - Should Be Spending Resources On A Digital Library That Is Used By Many People Beyond The Primary And Secondary Service Populations.

Now It Is Much Faster And Cheaper To Bring Thedocument To The User, Rather Than Ask The User To Come To The Document Or Collection.

We Cannot Innovate Without Opening The Door To Havoc.

As Project Chief You Are Creating A Narrative, A Story, A Good Yarn. If You Look At The Process-journey That Way, You And Your Gang Will ... Dramatically Up The Odds Of A Wow Outcome!

There's Nobody In The World That Wouldn't Change Places With The Americans. The Economy Is Phenomenally Large, The Entrepreneurial Class Is Very Alive And Very Well, The Universities, Despite Budget Problems, Still Turn Out Something Like 90 Percent Of The Refereed Academic And Technical Articles In The World. There's A Lot On Everybody's Agenda.

Perception Is All There Is. If The Customer Think He's Right, He's Right.

Nearly 100% Of Innovation-from Business To Politics-is Inspired Not By "market Analysis" But By People Who Are Supremely Pissed Off By The Way Things Are.

Who Comes First? Don't Be Silly, Says King Hal; It's Employees. That Is - And This Dear Watson, Is Elementary - If You Genuinely Want To Put Customers First, You Must Put Employees More First.

What You Decide Not To Do Is Probably More Important That What You Decide To Do.

Ultimately, I Think That The Growth And Sustainability Of The E-book Movement Depends On Authors And End-users (readers).

You Are Your Projects!

Mp3 Players And Flash Memory Devices Are Good For Data Storage And Playback Of Music And Digital Talking Books, But They Offer Little Or Nothing In The Way Of Visual Presentation Of Information And Communication.

Progress Is Mostly The Product Of Rogues.

Authority Never Matches Responsibility. That's One Of The Great Myths And Delusions Of All Times. Winning Managers And Individual Performers At All Levels Know That Effectiveness Means Building Your Own Network And Creating Your Own Authority. Those Who Succeed Always Reach Far Beyond Formal Deputation, Take Initiatives, And Take The Heat When Things Go Awry. That's True In The Military In Times Of War, True For 200 Person Manufacturing Firms, And True At Giant Automakers Or Software Companies.

Don't Let The Vision Be Shot Through With Holes, But Be Damn Sure Some Of Your Best And Brightest Are Shooting At It -- With Bazookas As Well As Sniper's Rifles.

Old: Be No.1 Or No.2 In Your Market. New: Find A Niche, Create Something New.

In The Great City Of San Francisco, Where I Used To Live, At 2 In The Morning Every Other Victorian House Has Somebody Who Is Writing The Great American Novel. And The City Is Not Loaded With James Joyces Or Virginia Woolfs. But Entrepreneurship Is About Distorted Views Of Reality.

Formula For Success: Under Promise And Over Deliver.

If Your Company Has A Clean-desk Policy, The Company Is Nuts And You're Nuts To Stay There.

Success Requires A Persistent Misreading Of The Odds.

And Remember: Everything In Business Is A Paradox. To Be Excellent, You Have To Be Consistent. When You're Consistent, You're Vulnerable To Attack. Yes, It's A Paradox. Now Deal With It!

Remembers Everything

Forget All The Conventional 'rules' But One. There Is One Golden Rule: Stick To Topics You Deeply Care About And Don't Keep Your Passion Buttoned Inside Your Vest. An Audience's Biggest Turn-on Is The Speaker's Obvious Enthusiasm. If You Are Lukewarm About The Issue, Forget It!

Leaders' Careers Will Usually Be Determined By Their Handling Of One Or Two Critical Events That No One Could Possibly Anticipate Or Plan For.

I Don't Want The 35-year-olds In My Audience To Think Of Me As As 'pops' Giving The Kind Of Advice That Only 65-year-olds Can Understand.

Even A Poor, Out-of-datecollection Reflects In Its Own Way The Values Of The People Who Created It And The Community It Serves.

Excellence Comes From Human Beings Doing Things Of Value That Customers Find Memorable.

Integrity May Be About Little Things As Much Or More Than Big Ones.

You Can Only Improve What You Measure.

'in Search Of Excellence' - Even The Title - Is A Reminder That Business Isn't Dry, Dreary, Boring, Or By The Numbers. Life At Work Can Be Cool - And Work That's Cool Isn't Confined To Tiger Woods, Yo-yo Ma, Or Tom Hanks. It's Available To All Of Us And Any Of Us.

Unless You Walk Out Into The Unknown, The Odds Of Making A Profound Difference In Your Life Are Pretty Low.

It's This Simple: You Are A Brand. You Are In Charge Of Your Brand. There Is No Single Path To Success. And There Is No One Right Way To Create The Brand Called You. Except This: Start Today. Or Else.

Smile If It Kills You. The Physiology Of Smiling Diffuses A Lot Of Anger And Angst. It Makes Your Body And Soul Feel Better.

I'm About As Far From Being A Flag-waver - You Won't Find Any American Flag Pins In My Drawer - As Someone Can Be.

The Greatest Difficulty In The World Is Not For People To Accept New Ideas, But To Make Them Forget Old Ideas.

What Gets Measured Gets Done.

Inspirational Customer Service

The Workplace Revolution That Transformed The Lives Of Blue-collar Workers In The 1970s And 1980s Is Finally Reaching The Offices And Cubicles Of The White-collar Workers.

One Percent Improvement In 1,000 Things Is Better Than 1,000% Improvement In One Thing.

Advantage Comes Not From The Spectacular Or The Technical. Advantage Comes From A Persistent Seeking Of The Mundane Edge.

Design Is So Critical It Should Be On The Agenda Of Every Meeting In Every Single Department.

The 'value Added' For Most Any Company, Tiny Or Enormous, Comes From The Quality Of Experience Provided.

Regardless Of Age, Regardless Of Position, Regardless Of The Business We Happen To Be In, All Of Us Need To Understand The Importance Of Branding. We Are Ceos Of Our Own Companies: Me, Inc. To Be In Business Today, Our Most Important Job Is To Be Head Marketer For The Brand Called You.

Listen While You Can, So That You Can Lead When You Must.

Innovation Comes Only From Readily And Seamlessly Sharing Information Rather Than Hoarding It.

Information Sharing

There Is No Such Thing As An Insignificant Improvement.

Self Improvement

Self Discipline

Hire Disrespectful People.

Momentum Is A Fragile Force. Its Worst Enemy: Procrastination. Its Best Friend: A Deadline (think Election Day). Implication No. 1 (and There Is No No. 2): Get To Work! Now!

Procrastination

We Must Reject All Notions Of 'reform' That Serve Up More Of The Same: More Testing, More 'standards', More Uniformity, More Conformity, More Bureaucracy.

If No One Is Pissed-off With You Then You Are Dead But Just Haven't Figured It Out Yet.

Digital Content And Electronic Networks Have Changed The Basic Environmental Conditionsin Which Documents Are Created, Distributed, And Used.

Forget Loyalty. Or At Least Loyalty To One's Corporation. Try Loyalty To Your Rolodex-your Network-instead.

Gandhi And Mandela And Churchill And Jfk And Reagan And Thatcher And Sarkozy And Franklin And Washington Set The Tone To An Incredible Degree-their "personal Style" Was Their "brand." ("it" Starts With Personal Style Of The Tip-top Leadership Team. Sorry To Be Politically Insensitive, But Who Would Give A Hoot About Tibet If It Weren't For The Look And Style Of The Dalai Lama?) Boss At Any Level: You're Either On The "it" Boat-or Not.

Confidence Means Non-paralysis, A Willingness To Act, And Act Decisively, To Start New Things And Cut Failing Ventures Off.

The Dumbest Mistake Is Viewing Design As Something You Do At The End Of The Process To 'tidy Up' The Mess, As Opposed To Understanding It's A 'day One' Issue And Part Of Everything.

Lavish Credit On Anyone And Everyone Who Helped You The Least Bit.

Excellence Is Not An Aspiration. Excellence Is What You Do In The Next Five Minutes.

The Widespread Availability Of Information Is The Only Basis For Effective Day-to-day Problem Solving, Which Abets Continuous Improvement Programs.

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.

Congratulations

Celebrate What You Want To See More Of.

Like It Or Not - And Often We Don't - Power Is A Pervasive Phenomenon. From Midnight Decisions In The Oval Office That Risk The Lives Of Young Americans To Quarrels Over The Kitchen Table, Power Is Part Of Every Human Equation. Yes, It Can Be - And Often Is - Abused, In Business As In All Arenas Of Endeavor. But It Can Also Be Used To Do Great Good For Great Numbers. And As A Career-building Tool, The Slow And Steady (and Subtle) Amassing Of Power Is The Surest Road To Success.

If You're Not Confused, You're Not Paying Attention.

I Don't Want An Epitaph On My Gravestone That Says, 'he Would Have Pursued Some Big Dreams In His Life, But Other People Wouldn't Let Him.

Winston Churchill Said That Appetite Was The Most Important Thing About Education. Leadership Guru Warren Bennis Says He Wants To Be Remembered As 'curious To The End.' David Ogilvy Contends That The Greatest Ad Copywriters Are Marked By An Insatiable Curiosity 'about Every Subject Under The Sun.'

Execution Excellence! (show Up On Time! Leave Last!)

If The Person You Delegated To Does The Job Twice As Well As You Would Have Done It, Consider Yourself A Leader.

Lists Simplify, Clarify, Edify.

He Who Makes The Quickest, Coolest Prototypes Reigns!

Are You Placing Enough Interesting, Freakish, Long Shot, Weirdo Bets?

I Imagine A School System That Recognizes Learning Is Natural, That A Love Of Learning Is Normal, And That Real Learning Is Passionate Learning. A School Curriculum That Values Questions Above Answers...creativity Above Fact Regurgitation...individuality Above Conformity.. And Excellence Above Standardized Performance..... And We Must Reject All Notions Of 'reform' That Serve Up More Of The Same: More Testing, More 'standards', More Uniformity, More Conformity, More Bureaucracy.

To Meet The Demands Of The Fast-changing Competitive Scene, We Must Simply Learn To Love Change As Much As We Have Hated It In The Past.

Hire For Attitude. Train For Skill... More

We All Know Of The Dangers And Inequities Of The Traditional Digital Divide: People Who Have Good Access Tocomputer Networks Have A Distinct Advantage - In Terms Of Both Life Opportunities And Quality Of Life, I Wouldargue - Over The Vast Majority Of The World's Population That Does Not Yet Have Good Access To Computernetworks. The "other" Digital Divide Points To An Increasingly Unstable Situation That Has Developed Inlibrarianship As Digital Libraries Have Evolved And Matured.

Hire Attitude Train Skills.

Print-based Libraries Developed In An Age Of Scarce Printed Resources.

Vision Is Dandy, But Sustainable Company Excellence Comes From A Huge Stable Of Able Managers.

Make An Extensive Table Of Project 'deliverables'. Label One Column 'as Requested'. Create Another Column Labeled 'could Be'. Make Each 'could Be' Wild And Woolly!

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.

If Future Competitiveness Depends On Treating People As An Important Part Of The Institution, The Least Respectful Thing I Can Imagine Doing To A Human Being Is Asking Him To Urinate In A Cup.

You Will Be Remembered, In The Long Haul, For The Quality Of Your Work, Not The Quantity Of Your Work. No One Evaluates Picasso Based On The Number Of Paintings He Churned Out.

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