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Life Is Pretty Simple: You Do Some Stuff. Most Fails. Some Works. You Do More Of What Works. If It Works Big, Others Quickly Copy It. Then You Do Something Else. The Trick Is The Doing Something Else.

-Tom Peters

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Life Is Pretty Simple:

Tom Peters

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Life Is Pretty Simple: You Do Some Stuff. Most Fails. Some Works. You Do More Of What Works. If It Works Big, Others Quickly Copy It. Then You Do Something Else. The Trick Is The Doing Something Else.

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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.

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.

'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.

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!

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

Swipe From The Best, Then Adapt.

Innovation And Business

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.

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.

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.

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

Don't 'tolerate' Mistakes. Embrace Them!

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!

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.

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

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.

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!

Passion. The Life Of An Entrepreneur Is Occasionally Exhilarating, And Almost Always Exhausting. Only Unbridled Passion For The Concept Is Likely To See You Through The 17-hour Days (month After Month) And The Painful Mistakes That Are Part And Parcel Of The Start-up Process.

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.

Effective Visions Are Lived In Details, Not Broad Strokes.

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

As Far As I'm Concerned, The First Business Leader Who Was Able To Establish A Cult Of Personality Around His Tenure Was Lee Iacocca.

Cult Of Personality

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.

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

Trust, Not Technology, Is The Issue Of The Decade.

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

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

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

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.

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

I Am Confident That For The Foreseeable Future (barring Some Catastrophic Event Affecting Economic, Energy, Electrical, And Communications Systems), Many Subpopulations That Use Information Intensively (e.g., Students, Academics, Library Patrons, White Collar Workers) Will Be Using Some Sort Of Portal Information Appliance.

You Are Who You Go To Lunch With! Break Bread With Cool And You Will Become More Cool. Conversely: Break Bread With Dull And Well, You Can Figure It Out.

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

How Do You Humiliate And Demean Someone And Then Expect Him Or Her To Care About Product Quality.

Learning Is A Matter Of Intensity Not Elapsed Time.

The Hyperfast-moving, Wired-up, Reengineered, Quality-obsessed Organization Will Succeed Or Fail On The Strength Of The Trust That Its Managers Place In The Folks Working On The Front Line.

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

Information Sharing

The Leaders Who Work Most Effectively, It Seems To Me, Never Say 'i'. They Don't Think 'i'. They Think 'we'; They Think 'team'.

Dot The I's, Cross The T's, Answer The Phones Promptly, Send Out Errorless Invoices, And In General Never Forget That The Devil Is In The Details.

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.

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.

There Is No Such Thing As A Minor Lapse Of Integrity

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.

He Who Makes The Quickest, Coolest Prototypes Reigns!

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.

Bold Botches Are To Be Cherished.

Lists Simplify, Clarify, Edify.

Steve Jobs Is Perhaps The Most Competitive Human Being I Have Ever Met In My Life, And Yet I Would Argue One Of The Most Artistic Human Beings I Have Ever Met In My Life. You Can Trash The Movies All You Want, But They Do Have An Artistic Component. And Yet Brutal Competition Knows No Peers When It Comes To Hollywood.

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

I Urge You To Set A Tough, Quantitative Target For Adding "differentiators" As I Call Them, To Every Service You Provide.

Power Lies In The Details, And The Tenacious Pursuit Of Such Hidden Levers Can Pay Off Enormously. While You Don't Want To Get A Reputation As A Prissy Worrywart, Worrying About The Details In Private Is Important. You May Think You Are The World's Greatest Speaker, But If The Auditorium's Sound System Is Singing Static - Well, Forget It.

If The Other Guy Is Getting Better, Then You'd Better Be Getting Better Faster Than The Other Guy Is Getting Better... Or You're Getting Worse.

It May Be Primarily Property Taxes In The Case Of A Public Library, Or State Taxes And Tuition In The Case Of An Academic Library At A Public University, But The Funding Sources Of Most Libraries Continue To Have A Strong Geographic Component.

Today Brands Are Everything, And All Kinds Of Products And Services - From Accounting Firms To Sneaker Makers To Restaurants - Are Figuring Out How To Transcend The Narrow Boundaries Of Their Categories And Become A Brand Surrounded By A Tommy Hilfiger-like Buzz.

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

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.

The Best Leaders Are The Best Notetakers, Best Askers, And Best Learners.

Mistakes Are Life. Mistakes Are Not To Be Tolerated...they Are To Be Encouraged. The Bigger The Better.

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

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.

For Me, Reading Is Reading.

The Trouble With Much Of The Advice Business Gets Today About The Need To Be More Vigorously Creative Is That Its Advocates Often Fail To Distinguish Between Creativity And Innovation. Creativity Is Thinking Up New Things. Innovation Is Doing New Things... The Shortage Is Of Innovators.

Progress Is Mostly The Product Of Rogues.

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

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

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

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.

I Don't Know What It Means To Manage The Human Imagination, But I Do Know That Imagination Is The Main Source Of Value In The New Economy. And I Know We'd Better Figure Out The Answer To My Question-quick.

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

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

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

I Think Economics Is About Passion. Economic Progress, Whether It Is A Two-person Coffee Shop Or Whether It Is Netscape, Is About People With Brave Ideas. Because It Is Brave To Mortgage The House, When You've Got Two Kids, To Start A Coffee Shop.

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

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

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

Are Your Customers Saying Wow?

The Thing That Keeps A Business Ahead Of The Competition Is Excellence In Execution.

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.

Companies Have Got To Learn To Eat Change For Breakfast.

A Career Is A Portfolio Of Projects That Teach You New Skills, Gain You New Expertise, Develop New Capabilities, Grow Your Colleague Set, And Constantly Reinvent You As A Brand.

Everyone Has A Chance To Learn, Improve, And Build Up Their Skills.

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.

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

Effective Listening

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

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

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.

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

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.

It Boils Down To Studenthood-in-perpetuity / Curiosity-in-perpetuity / Applied Fanatic Restlessness. That Is, A Belief That Life Is One Big Learning Experience. Something Mysterious Happens To A Curious, Fully Engaged Mind - And It Happens As Often As Not, Subconsciously. Strange Little Sparks Are Set Off, Connections Made, Insights Triggered. The Results: An Exponentially Increased Ability To Tune Up / Reinvent / Wow-ize Today's Project At Work.

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

One Potential Long-term Problem With Many Current Digital Libraries Is That They Grew Out Of And Aresupported By Bricks-and-mortar Libraries. Although There Is Nothing Inherently Wrong With That Arrangement, Inreality It Creates A Potentially Dangerous Situation That I Call "the Other Digital Divide."

Dangerous Situations

Bricks And Mortar

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

Leaders Win Through Logistics. Vision, Sure. Strategy, Yes. But When You Go To War, You Need To Have Both Toilet Paper And Bullets At The Right Place At The Right Time. In Other Words, You Must Win Through Superior Logistics.

There Is No Such Thing As An Insignificant Improvement.

Self Improvement

Self Discipline

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.

...high End Does Not Necessarily Equal High Price. It's A Matter Of Attitude.

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

Entrepreneurs Have No Memories. They Take On The World With A Completely Fresh View.

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.

Take Someone New And Weird To Lunch Today

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

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.

Send 10-ten!!-people Flowers. Today. As "thank Yous" For Good Things "small"-or Even Large-done In The Last Two Weeks.

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

We're Going To See Leadership Emerge As The Most Important Element Of Business - The Attribute That Is Highest In Demand And Shortest In Supply.

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

I'm Fundamentally Not Interested In The Fortune 500 Companies - In Us, Mexico, Anywhere. The Real Backbones Of Economic Growth Are Small And Medium Businesses.

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."

Community Organizing Is All About Building Grassroots Support. It's About Identifying The People Around You With Whom You Can Create A Common, Passionate Cause. And It's About Ignoring The Conventional Wisdom Of Company Politics And Instead Playing The Game By Very Different Rules.

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

The Day Firing Becomes Easy Is The Day To Fire Yourself.

With Most Competitors Moving Ever Faster, The Race Will Go To Those Who Listen (and Respond) Most Intently.

Become A "learning Organization". Shuck Your Arrogance - "if It Isn't Our Idea, It Can't Be That Good" - And Become A Determined Copycat/ Adapter/ Enhancer.

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

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

What Is My Personal Strategy For The Next 10 Hours? Who Can I Talk With Or What Can I Volunteer For To Learn Something New?

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.

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.

What Gets Measured Gets Done.

Inspirational Customer Service

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.

Communication Is Everyone's Panacea For Everything.

Good Communication

Think About The Market, Think About The Design, And Think About Who Is Going To Design For That Market. Hit The Mark.

Good Managers Have A Bias For Action.

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

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

Formula For Success: Underpromise And Overachieve.

Inspirational Business

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

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.

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

To Sell Is Above All To Master The Art And Science Of Listening.

You Can Only Improve What You Measure.

Transforming Leadership, [is Defined As] Leadership That Builds On Man's Need For Meaning, Leadership That Creates Institutional Purpose ... He Is The Value-shaper, The Exemplar, The Maker Of Meanings ... He Is The True Artist, The True Pathfinder.

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.

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

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.

Business Isn't Some Disembodied Bloodless Enterprise. Profit Is Fine - A Sign That The Customer Honors The Value Of What We Do. But "enterprise" ( A Lovely Word ) Is About Heart. About Beauty. It's About Art. About People Throwing Themselves On The Line. It's About Passion And The Selfless Pursuit Of An Ideal.

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

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.

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.

Hire For Attitude. Train For Skill... More

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

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.

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!

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.

Success Requires A Persistent Misreading Of The Odds.

All Business Success Rests On Something Labeled A Sale, Which At Least Momentarily Weds Company And Customer.

Congratulations

If I Read A Book That Cost Me $20 And I Get One Good Idea, I've Gotten One Of The Greatest Bargains Of All Time.

Oh Lord, There It Is Again. The Question;" What Kind Of Business Should I Start?" Incidentially, It Has A Twin That Also Sets Me Off: "what Should I Specialize In During The Second Year Of My Mba Studies?" Sorry, But Those Are Two Of The Most Profoundly Upsetting Questions Anyone Can Ask - Upsetting Because The Answer Should Be Obvious: Do What Turns You On, Not What The Statistics Say Is Best.

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

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

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.

Do It, Fix It, Try It.

Nothing Good Or Great Can Be Done In The Absence Of Enthusiasm.

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

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

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

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

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.

In Today's Economy There Are No Experts, No 'best And Brightest' With All The Answers. It's Up To Each One Of Us. The Only Way To Screw Up Is To Not Try Anything.

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

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

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

Leadership Is About Tapping The Wellsprings Of Human Motivation - And About Fundamental Relations With One's Fellows.

The Common Wisdom Is That ... Managers Have To Learn To Motivate People. Nonsense. Employees Bring Their Own Motivation.

The Market May Never Coalesce Around One Basic Design, Or Even Around Two Or Three Dominant Devices.

Management Is About Arranging And Telling. Leadership Is About Nurturing And Enhancing.

Have You Thanked A Front-line Employee For Carrying Around A Great Attitude ... Today?

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

Test Fast, Fail Fast, Adjust Fast.

Had Twitter Been Invented Earlier, My Books Would Have Been Shorter.

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

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

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.

I Don't Believe In Holy Writ. Buy Fifty Books Or Twenty-five Books, Take Three Weeks Off, Read Them And Make Up Your Own Theory. The Fact That You End Up Literally Burning Twenty-two Out Of Twenty-five Books Is Beside The Point.

The Chinese Are Quite Entrepreneurial. Remember When Lenovo Bought Ibm's Pc Division. It Was Said That China Didn't Need A Brand Name, China Didn't Need To Buy Lenovo To Get Into The Pc Business, I Remember Reading A One-liner Somewhere Which Struck Me As Quite Possibly True, It Said The One Thing That The Chinese Had Not Been Able To Copy Or Figure Out Was The Way, In Terms Of Systems, That Americans - It Probably Would Be True For Europeans As Well - That Americans Install And Live By Their Management Systems, While China Is Still Quite Half-assed. Perhaps That Is A True Statement.

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 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.

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

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.

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

Business Book Writing For Me Is When Some Set Of Ideas Gets Stuck In My Mind, I Write A Book About It. I Haven't Got A Theory And I Haven't Got A Framework.

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

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).

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.

Opportunity Is Not "knocking." It Is Pounding On Your Door.

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

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.

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

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!

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

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 Unthinkable Is Thinkable. No: Likely.

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

You Are Your Projects!

The Winners Stun Us Not By Their Cleverness, But By The Fact That Every Tiny Aspect Of The Business Is Just A Touch Better Than The Norm.

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

In Mckinsey's World, All Of Life Is One Of Two Things: Strategy Or Organization.

Leaders Understand The Ultimate Power Of Relationships.

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.

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