What you decide not to do is probably more important that what you decide to do.
TOM PETERSI 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.
More Tom Peters Quotes
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Oh Lord, there it is again. The question;” What kind of business should I start?” Incidentially, it has a twin that also sets me off: “What should I specialize in during the second year of my MBA studies?”
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The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity.
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Become a “learning organization”. Shuck your arrogance – “if it isn’t our idea, it can’t be that good” – and become a determined copycat/ adapter/ enhancer.
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Leaders understand the ultimate power of relationships.
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Leadership is about tapping the wellsprings of human motivation – and about fundamental relations with one’s fellows.
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The dominant culture in most big companies demands punishment for a mistake, no matter how useful, small, invisible.
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Even a poor, out-of-datecollection reflects in its own way the values of the people who created it and the community it serves.
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Quite simply, no matter how hard you try, no matter how “open” you are, you’ll end up surrounded by “yes people.” It’s hard not to believe people who are repeating your own ideas. Resist the temptation.
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We cannot innovate without opening the door to havoc.
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The thing that keeps a business ahead of the competition is excellence in execution.
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Learning is a matter of intensity not elapsed time.
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Listen to Everyone. Ideas come from everywhere
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The best leaders are the best notetakers, best askers, and best learners.
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Community. A friend started a real estate brokerage a few years ago. By the time she’d added her second employee, she was a pillar of her 35,000-person community.
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Lists simplify, clarify, edify.
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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.
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Confidence means non-paralysis, a willingness to act, and act decisively, to start new things and cut failing ventures off.
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All white-collar work is project work. The single salient fact that touches all of our lives is that work is being reinvented.
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We often hear that the digital age has resulted in a devaluing of time, space, and place. But I wonder if theseclaims are exaggerated.
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Like it or not – and often we don’t – power is a pervasive phenomenon. From midnight decisions in the Oval Office that risk the lives of young Americans to quarrels over the kitchen table, power is part of every human equation.
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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.
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I think it’s wonderful to save the world, but you need to be part of the world, too.
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Those who succeed always reach far beyond formal deputation, take initiatives, and take the heat when things go awry. That’s true in the military in times of war, true for 200 person manufacturing firms, and true at giant automakers or software companies.
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TRUST, not technology, is the issue of the decade.
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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.
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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