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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

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
Make an extensive table of project ‘deliverables’. Label one column ‘as requested’. Create another column labeled ‘could be’. Make each ‘could be’ wild and woolly!
TOM PETERS

Column Impact Labels Make Tables
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
The thing that keeps a business ahead of the competition is excellence in execution.
TOM PETERS

Business Competition Excellence
What you decide not to do is probably more important that what you decide to do.
TOM PETERS

Decide Important Probably
Have you set high standards in the past that make it clear what level of performance you demand?
TOM PETERS

High Levels Past Standards
We cannot innovate without opening the door to havoc.
TOM PETERS

Doors Havoc Innovation
What gets measured gets done.
TOM PETERS

Done Inspirational Customer Service Measurement
As a consumer, you want to associate with brands whose powerful presence creates a halo effect that rubs off on you.
TOM PETERS

Halos Powerful Want
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?
TOM PETERS

Colleagues Greatest Lately Networthy
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
The dominant culture in most big companies demands punishment for a mistake, no matter how useful, small, invisible.
TOM PETERS

Culture Mistake Punishment
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
Business is about people. It’s about passion. It’s about bold ideas, bold small ideas or bold large ideas.
TOM PETERS

Ideas Passion People
You can only improve what you measure.
TOM PETERS

Improve Measure Only People Possible
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

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Tom Peters Quotes