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If there is a single tragic flaw that mars our biggest enterprises, it is conservatism – the failure to fail, and fail big, in an era of unprecedented volatility and ambiguity.

Tom Peters

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.
TOM PETERS

Business Country Numbers Power Risk
Print-based libraries developed in an age of scarce printed resources.
TOM PETERS

Age Library Resources
Bold botches are to be cherished.
TOM PETERS

Botches Cherished Country People
He who makes the quickest, coolest prototypes reigns!
TOM PETERS

Prototype Reign Work
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.
TOM PETERS

Business Person Real School Second
Vision is dandy, but sustainable company excellence comes from a huge stable of able managers.
TOM PETERS

Able Excellence Vision
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.
TOM PETERS

Asking Important People
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!
TOM PETERS

Business Remembers Everything Vulnerable
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.
TOM PETERS

Coffee Kids Passion
Excellence is not an aspiration. Excellence is what you do in the next five minutes.
TOM PETERS

Excellence Minutes Next
All white-collar work is project work. The single salient fact that touches all of our lives is that work is being reinvented.
TOM PETERS

Facts Life Reinvented White
Every managerial act must be seen as an unequivocal support for urgency in pursuit of constant testing, change, and improvement.
TOM PETERS

Improvement Pursuit Support
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
TOM PETERS

Builds Chance Everyone News Skills
Mistakes are life. Mistakes are not to be tolerated…they are to be encouraged. The bigger the better.
TOM PETERS

Bigger Encouraged Mistake
Winners must learn to relish change with the same enthusiasm and energy that we have resisted it in the past.
TOM PETERS

Change Learning Past
If your company has a clean-desk policy, the company is nuts and you’re nuts to stay there.
TOM PETERS

Clean Desk Company Nuts Office Policy

If there is a single tragic flaw that mars our biggest enterprises, it is conservatism – the failure to fail, and fail big, in an era of unprecedented volatility and ambiguity.

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Popular Authors

If there is a single tragic flaw that mars our biggest enterprises, it is conservatism – the failure to fail, and fail big, in an era of unprecedented volatility and ambiguity.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Tom Peters Quotes