Tom Peters Quotes - Page 6

Swipe from the best, then adapt.

Brand inside is more important than brand outside for sustained success.

Cost does not equal value... and low cost parts decrease brand equity for a very long time.

Effective listening is a professional achievement-achieved only through hard work.

Collections of books and other documents, either printed or electronic, are a form of congregation.

What you decide not to do is probably more important that what you decide to do.

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.

Start by identifying the qualities or characteristics that make you distinctive from your competitors - or your colleagues. What have you done lately - this week - to make yourself stand out? What would your colleagues or your customers say is your greatest and clearest strength? Your most noteworthy (as in, worthy of note) personal trait?

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.

The race will go to the curious, the slightly mad, and those with an un-satiated passion for learning and dare-deviltry.

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.

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.

An ability to embrace new ideas, routinely challenge old ones, and live with paradox will be the effective leader's premier trait.

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.

The company's most urgent task is to learn to welcome, beg for, demand - innovation from everyone.

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.

Business is about people. It's about passion. It's about bold ideas, bold small ideas or bold large ideas.

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?

Everyone has a chance to learn, improve, and build up their skills.

Send 10-TEN!!-people flowers. Today. As "Thank yous" for good things "small"-or even large-done in the last two weeks.

The widespread availability of information is the only basis for effective day-to-day problem solving, which abets continuous improvement programs.

The day firing becomes easy is the day to fire yourself.

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.

Knowing when to take your losses is an essential part of eventual success.