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The principal reason, invariably, most “successful” giant companies rather quickly become also-rans, or just amorphous blobs on the competitive landscape, is their failure to re-tool in anything like a fundamental way. In fact,

Tom Peters

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
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.
TOM PETERS

Devil Entrepreneur Phones
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
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.
TOM PETERS

Differences Public Speaking Skills
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

Ambiguity Era Flaws Mars Unprecedented Volatility
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.
TOM PETERS

Decision Important Intuition More Practical Tough
Execution Excellence! (Show up on time! Leave last!)
TOM PETERS

Entrepreneur Excellence Lasts
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
Smile if it kills you. The physiology of smiling diffuses a lot of anger and angst. It makes your body and soul feel better.
TOM PETERS

Better Body Feel Soul
Hire disrespectful people.
TOM PETERS

Disrespectful People Work
Cost does not equal value… and low cost parts decrease brand equity for a very long time.
TOM PETERS

Cost Elapsed Long
Effective listening is a professional achievement-achieved only through hard work.
TOM PETERS

Achievement Effective Hard Listening Work
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.
TOM PETERS

Answer Anyone Profoundly Sorry Statics Upsetting
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.
TOM PETERS

Business Customer Genuine Kings Silly
Leadership is about tapping the wellsprings of human motivation – and about fundamental relations with one’s fellows.
TOM PETERS

Fundamentals Leadership Motivation
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.
TOM PETERS

Book Growing Hallmark Parks

The principal reason, invariably, most “successful” giant companies rather quickly become also-rans, or just amorphous blobs on the competitive landscape, is their failure to re-tool in anything like a fundamental way. In fact,

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The principal reason, invariably, most “successful” giant companies rather quickly become also-rans, or just amorphous blobs on the competitive landscape, is their failure to re-tool in anything like a fundamental way. In fact,

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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