Quotes on Leadership
“We are comfortable planting seeds and waiting for them to grow into trees.”
“To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West - know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.”
“Any business plan won’t survive its first encounter with reality. The reality will always be different. It will never be the plan.”
“Remember that reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets—and can be lost in a heartbeat.”
“Any road followed precisely to its end leads precisely nowhere. Climb the mountain just a little bit to test that it's a mountain. From the top of the mountain, you cannot see the mountain.”
“Humanity is at a crossroads. We can continue down the current path of greed, consumerism, oligarchy, poverty, war, racism, and environmental degradation. Or we can lead the world in moving in a very different direction.”
“We are stubborn on vision. We are flexible on details.”
“People calculate too much and think too little.”
“What are the secret of success? - one word answer: "rational".”
“To invent you have to experiment, and if you know in advance that it’s going to work, it’s not an experiment.”
“We Are What We Choose”
“Stress comes from ignoring the things that you shouldn't be ignoring.”
“For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness.”
“As we look ahead into the next century, leaders will be those who empower others.”
“What's very dangerous is not to evolve”
“Let me tell your something. I'm from Chicago. I don't break.”
“Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can't lose.”
“”You’ve worn me down” is an awful decision-making process. It’s slow and de-energizing. Go for quick escalation instead – it’s better.”
“The single best way to develop leaders... is to take people out of their safe environment and away from the people they know, and throw them into a new arena they know little about. Way over their head, preferably. In fact, the more demanding their challenges, the more pressure and risk they face, the more likely a dynamic leader will emerge.”
“Change is never easy, but always possible.”
“What’s dangerous is not to evolve.”
“All businesses need to be young forever. If your customer base ages with you, you’re Woolworth’s.”
“A company shouldn’t get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn’t last.”
“No business can continue to shrink. That can only go on for so long before irrelevancy sets in.”
“The death knell for any enterprise is to glorify the past -- no matter how good it was.”
“Most decisions should probably be made with around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow.”
“We need big failures in order to move the needle. If we don’t, we’re not swinging enough. You really should be swinging hard, and you will fail, but that’s okay.”
“Maintain a firm grasp of the obvious at all times.”
“We can't be in survival mode. We have to be in growth mode.”
“Yes We Can!”