Tom Peters Quotes

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.
TOM PETERS

Entering Important May
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.
TOM PETERS

Book Digital Hard People Print
We often hear that the digital age has resulted in a devaluing of time, space, and place. But I wonder if theseclaims are exaggerated.
TOM PETERS

Age Digital Space
Leaders understand the ultimate power of relationships.
TOM PETERS

Inspirational Leader Ultimate
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
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.
TOM PETERS

Individual Levels Mean Military War
It doesn’t matter what product or service you’re offering; there is unlimited ability to improve the quality of anything.
TOM PETERS

Anything Matter Offering Quality
The world has not just “turned upside down”. It is turning in every which way at an accelerating pace.
TOM PETERS

Accelerating Pace Way World
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.
TOM PETERS

People Teamwork Thinking
TRUST, not technology, is the issue of the decade.
TOM PETERS

Decades Issues Technology
The idea of intimately entwining with customers [to get ideas] is an idea whose time has come.
TOM PETERS

Customers Ideas Intimately
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.
TOM PETERS

Digital Library Usage Widerspread
Celebrate what you want to see more of.
TOM PETERS

Inspirational Life Motivational
Forget loyalty. Or at least loyalty to one’s corporation. Try loyalty to your Rolodex-your network-instead.
TOM PETERS

Corporations Loyalty Trying
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.
TOM PETERS

Decision Leader Rap
For me, reading is reading.
TOM PETERS

Good Knowledge Learn Read Reading
…high end does not necessarily equal high price. It’s a matter of attitude.
TOM PETERS

Attitide Attitude Matter
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.
TOM PETERS

Giving Thinking Understand Years
Bold botches are to be cherished.
TOM PETERS

Botches Cherished Country People
David Ogilvy contends that the greatest ad copywriters are marked by an insatiable curiosity ‘about every subject under the sun.’
TOM PETERS

Copywriters Curiosity Subject Sun
Leaders’ careers will usually be determined by their handling of one or two critical events that no one could possibly anticipate or plan for.
TOM PETERS

Careers Leadership Two
Excellent firms don’t believe in excellence – only in constant improvement and constant change.
TOM PETERS

Educational Inspirational Loyalty
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.
TOM PETERS

Business Country Growth Real
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.
TOM PETERS

Business Dull Lunch
South Africa has all the tools to compete in the new global village – an eager workforce, ready to take on any challenge.
TOM PETERS

Challenges Competition Tools
Progress is mostly the product of rogues.
TOM PETERS

Products Progress Rogues
The company’s most urgent task is to learn to welcome, beg for, demand – innovation from everyone.
TOM PETERS

Demand Innovation Tasks

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