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Lists simplify, clarify, edify.

Tom Peters

The common wisdom is that … managers have to learn to motivate people. Nonsense. Employees bring their own motivation.
TOM PETERS

Common Motivation People
The dumbest mistake is viewing design as something you do at the end of the process to ‘tidy up’ the mess, as opposed to understanding it’s a ‘day one’ issue and part of everything.
TOM PETERS

Design Issues Mistakes Something Understanding
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.
TOM PETERS

Miserable Stuff Trying Way
Swipe from the best, then adapt.
TOM PETERS

Business Innovation Innovative
Knowing when to take your losses is an essential part of eventual success.
TOM PETERS

Essentials Knowing Loss
What gets measured gets done.
TOM PETERS

Done Inspirational Customer Service Measurement
Celebrate what you want to see more of.
TOM PETERS

Inspirational Life Motivational
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.
TOM PETERS

Essay Music Spoken Tempered
One simply cannot pay tribute to Stephen Covey without saying at the outset that he was a lovely human being.
TOM PETERS

Human Lovely Pay Tribute
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
We cannot innovate without opening the door to havoc.
TOM PETERS

Doors Havoc Innovation
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
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
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
If the person you delegated to does the job twice as well as you would have done it, consider yourself a leader.
TOM PETERS

Consider Deligated Jobs Leader
Business ceases to be work when you’re chasing a dream that has engorged you. (“Work should be more fun than fun” – Noel Coward.) And if the passion isn’t there. then biotech and plumbing will be equal drags.
TOM PETERS

Biotech Business Cease Dream Engorged
The best leaders are the best notetakers, best askers, and best learners.
TOM PETERS

Best Leader Leader Learners
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
Some people have argued that listening to a work of literature does not really promote literacy in the same way that reading does.
TOM PETERS

Challenges People Reading
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
The thing that keeps a business ahead of the competition is excellence in execution.
TOM PETERS

Business Competition Excellence
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
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
Vision is dandy, but sustainable company excellence comes from a huge stable of able managers.
TOM PETERS

Able Excellence Vision
TRUST, not technology, is the issue of the decade.
TOM PETERS

Decades Issues Technology
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
TOM PETERS

Connections Littles Mind
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

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Lists simplify, clarify, edify.

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