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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

Hire attitude train skills.
TOM PETERS

Attitude Skills Train
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
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
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
The company’s most urgent task is to learn to welcome, beg for, demand – innovation from everyone.
TOM PETERS

Demand Innovation Tasks
Hire disrespectful people.
TOM PETERS

Disrespectful People 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
Learning is a matter of intensity not elapsed time.
TOM PETERS

Learning Matter Teaching
Passion. The life of an entrepreneur is occasionally exhilarating, and almost always exhausting. Only unbridled passion for the concept is likely to see you through the 17-hour days (month after month) and the painful mistakes that are part and parcel of the start-up process.
TOM PETERS

Concept Exhilarating Mistake Occasionally Passion Peace
A passive approach to professional growth will leave you by the wayside.
TOM PETERS

Approach Growth Passive
Knowing when to take your losses is an essential part of eventual success.
TOM PETERS

Essentials Knowing Loss
If no one is pissed-off with you then you are dead but just haven’t figured it out yet.
TOM PETERS

Knowledge Learning Off Pissed
You can only improve what you measure.
TOM PETERS

Improve Measure Only People Possible
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 number one premise of business is that it need not be boring or dull. It ought to be fun. If it’s not fun, you’re wasting your life.
TOM PETERS

Business Creativity Fun
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
A completely free library is as rare as a truly free lunch.
TOM PETERS

Free Library Lunch Rare
Your calendar never lies. All we have is our time. The way we spend our time is our priorities, is our strategy. Your calendar knows what you really care about. Do you?
TOM PETERS

Calendar Care Lying Priorities
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
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
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
Develop a respect and reverence for the principle of variation: the idea that the message ain’t in the mean, the mode or the median – it’s in the differences that occur throughout a population.
TOM PETERS

Differences Educational Ideas Mean Occur
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
Stop being conned by the old mantra that says, ‘Leaders are cool, managers are dweebs.’ Instead, follow the Peters Principle: Leaders are cool. Managers are cool too!
TOM PETERS

Leader Peter Principles
Vision is dandy, but sustainable company excellence comes from a huge stable of able managers.
TOM PETERS

Able Excellence Vision
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
Rewards should go to teams as a whole.
TOM PETERS

Rewards Should Teamwork

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.

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Popular Authors

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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Tom Peters Quotes