Each man is the smith of his own fortune.
Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money.
Companies can never demand loyalty and motivation from their employees. They have to earn it from every individual they employ, and that's not easy when job security can no longer be taken for granted.
Think about this old adage from the world of negotiations: "Whoever speaks next, loses."
The biggest mistake you can make is believing you work for somebody else.
He who forsees calamities, suffers them twice over.
Beware of the little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship.
Would you live with ease, do what you ought, and not what you please.
He that is of the opinion money will do everything may well be suspected of doing everything for money.
A little neglect may breed great mischief.
If we are not realistic about what we are good at, then there is a chance of going backwards in the face of further competition.
When businesses spend their days hoping nothing too terrible will happen, and when they loose their will to excel and compete and delight, then they're the walking dead.
But much more important, people tended to overestimate their appetites for rides. They'd pay a premium to be admitted to everything, and then they'd be happy with a lot less.
Poverty is hard, but debt is horrible.
The stock market I think views the commodity and energy mania as a permanent problem. The problems that come from higher and continually rising prices don't seem like they are going to end.
Expenditure always rises to meet income.
The expression one wears on one's face is far more important than the clothes one wears on one's back.
"...it's not a matter of price once you've misstated the facts. You're dead in the water.
They thought they could move their people into a new building without moving their old culture. It was a colossal failure.
Remember that structure drives behavior
Happiness, wealth, and success are by-products of goal setting; they cannot be the goal themselves.
In the end, you're measured not by how much you undertake but by what you finally accomplish.
Your ability as a manager is measured by what your employees do.
But the best companies become more, not less, idiosyncratic over time. They know that to do weird, they have to be weird. This idiosyncrasy has created a culture of beauty at Apple, of hacking at Facebook, of efficiency at Amazon.
If we do not like our work, and do not try to get happiness out of it, we are a menace to our profession as well as to ourselves.
The man who is diligent in the planting of good seed, will find after awhile that he always has something coming to fulfillment.
Behind every great fortune there is a crime.
He will always be a slave who does not know how to live upon little.
He is rich who owes nothing.
I’ve written previously about my view of the three most important metrics to measure a business’s health. They are employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and cash flow. While each of these is important, the latter two are difficult for an individual to change quickly. Employee engagement, however, is something that is in the hands of every leader, every day -- whether you're managing one, ten, a thousand, or ten thousand.
I don't want someone to come in and slash and burn and get rid of happy employees...Acquisitions have nothing to do with innovation and creativity. It's adding numbers to the bottom line so the CEO looks better.
The key question is, 'How can this data help me take an action? What does it mean? What are the actionable insights?'
Opportunities are seldom labeled.
You will never create a great company until you face a near death experience."
If you're in business and you're not aggressively building, you shouldn't be in.
A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.
The safest way to double your money is to fold it over and put it in your pocket.
...the question of what one should make is always superior, in point or order and logic, to the question of how to make it.
I do believe that you can achieve more if you're willing to take risks. There's almost a total correlation between the amount of risk you're willing to take and then the amount of stuff you then potentially can get done.
The way to go from rags to riches is to start by getting a decent set of rags.
Don't ever allow yourself to be offended by someone who is learning his job.
"..the best financial planning ends with bouncing the check to the undertaker."
Starving research and development is like eating the seed corn.
When you are skinning your customers you should leave some skin on to grow again so that you can skin them again.
There I discovered something about capitalists. They are all alike, whatever the nationality. All they wanted from me was the most work for the least money that kept me alive. So I became a Communist.
It does not matter whether the worker wants responsibility or not, ...The enterprise must demand it of him.
Free enterprise cannot be justified as being good for business. It can be justified only as being good for society.
The moment people talk of "implementing" instead of "doing," and of "finalizing" instead of "finishing," the organization is already running a fever.
There is only one valid definition of a business purpose: to create a customer.
[human types needed for top management tasks] ...the "thought man" …the "action man" …the "people man" …the "front man" …Yet those four temperaments are almost never found in one person. ...The one-man top management job is a major reason why business fail to grow.
Management has authority only as long as it performs.
It has been said, and only half in jest, that a tough, professionally led union is a great force for improving management performance. It forces the manager to think about what he is doing and to be able to explain his actions and behavior.
The purpose of an organization is to enable common men to do uncommon things.
Executives do many things in addition to making decisions. But only executives make decisions. The first managerial skill is, therefore, the making of effective decisions.
There is a point of complexity beyond which a business is no longer manageable.
...what's absolutely unforgivable is the financial benefit top management people get for laying off people. There is no excuse for it. No justification. This is morally and socially unforgivable, and we will pay a heavy price for it.
An organization belongs on a sick list when promotion becomes more important to its people than accomplishment of their job they are in. It is sick when it is more concerned with avoiding mistakes than with taking risks, with counteracting the weaknesses of its members than with building on their strength. But it is sick also when "good human relations" become more important than performance and achievement.
The company is not and must never claim to be home, family, religion, life or fate for the individual. It must never interfere in his private life or his citizenship. He is tied to the company through a voluntary and cancellable employment contract, not through some mystical or indissoluble bond.
Long-term planning is often undervalued by our indefinite short-term world.
A business with a good definite plan will always be underrated in a world where people see the future as random.
Disruption also attracts attention: disruptors are people who look for trouble and find it. Disruptive kids get sent to the principal's office. Disruptive companies often pick fights they can't win.
Yes, the human body needs blood. It needs to manufacture red and white cells and platelets and redistribute them evenly, smoothly, to all the right places, on time, or else. But that day-to-day business of the human body isn't our mission as human beings. It's a basic process that enables our higher aims, and life always strives to transcend the basic processes of living---and at some point in the late 1970s, I did, too.
Supply and demand is always the root problem in business. It's hard enough to invent and manufacture and market and product, but then the logistics, the mechanics, the hydraulics of getting it to the people who want it, when they want it---this is how companies die, how ulcers are born.
The miser is as much in want of that which he has, as of that which he has not.
Money often costs too much.
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.
There’s a reason very few creative people wear suits and ties. Audacious ideas rarely spring from boardrooms and office cubicles. They come from getting out and about and experiencing life in its most inspiring settings. Creativity doesn’t wear a uniform, nor should creators.
Business (big and small) used to be a core principle of being an American. Now it's becoming what can the government tax from others to provide for me?
When the tide goes out, we discover who’s been without a bathing suit all along.
I used to think the billion dollar Silicon Valley start-up thing was the only business worth starting. But as I've gotten older and a bit more experienced, I've come to realize that there is a lot of value in small, simple cash-flow businesses that generate $1,000 or more per month and pretty much run themselves. So consider starting a few of these first before you try to change the world.
Few things are impossible to dilligence and skill...Great works are performed, not by strength, but perseverance.
Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity.
[The] timeworn definition of a consultant: someone who borrows your watch to tell you the time.
Win-win sees life as a cooperative, not a competitive arena.
Sending emails and filling the calendar is a way to feel busy even if not much of value is getting done.
The bad news is that businesses will soon find themselves waking up to a painful debt hangover that will constrain their choices in the years ahead.
Debt is the worst poverty.
Never spend your money before you have it.
Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters.
Never ask the barber if you need a haircut.
Some material things make my life more enjoyable; many, however, would not. I like having an expensive private plane, but owning a half-dozen homes would be a burden...Too often, a vast collection of possessions ends up possessing its owner. The asset I most value, aside from health, is interesting, diverse, and long-standing friends.
Each man is the smith of his own fortune.
