“Any supervisor worth his salt would rather deal with people who attempt too much than with those who try too little.”
“Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, do something. Don’t just stand there, make it happen.”
“Bad times are indelible. They stay with you forever.”
“Be creative. Use unconventional thinking. And have the guts to carry it out.”
“Decisiveness is the one word that makes a good manager.”
“Every business and every product has risks. You can’t get around it.”
“Formal learning can teach you a great deal, but many of the essential skills in life are the ones you have to develop on your own.”
“I forgot to shake hands and be friendly. It was an important lesson about leadership.”
“I have always found that if I move with seventy-five percent or more of the facts that I usually never regret it. It’s the guys who wait to have everything perfect that drive you crazy.”
“I have found that being honest is the best technique I can use. Right up front, tell people what you’re trying to accomplish and what you’re willing to sacrifice to accomplish it.”
“I hire people brighter than me and then I get out of their way.”
“I only wish I could find an institute that teaches people how to listen. Business people need to listen at least as much as they need to talk. Too many people fail to realize that real communication goes in both directions.”
“If I had to sum up in one word the qualities that make up a good manager, I’d say decisiveness.”
“If you own up to your mistakes, you don’t suffer as much. But that’s a tough lesson to learn.”
“If you set a good example you need not worry about setting rules.”
“If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got.”
“In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have.”
“In my book, if you’re not No. 1, you’ve got to innovate.”
“In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product, and profits. People come first. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two.”
“Incompetency begets incompetency. The last thing a guy who isn’t sure of himself wants is a guy backing him up who is sure of himself.”
“Leadership means setting an example. When you find yourself in a position of leadership, people follow your every move.”
“Listening can make the difference between a mediocre organization and a great one.”
“Mistakes are a part of life; you can’t avoid them. All you can hope is that they won’t be too expensive and that you don’t make the same mistake twice.”
“Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can’t be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people.”
“Never rest on your oars as a boss. If you do, the whole company starts sinking.”
“No matter what you’ve done for yourself or for humanity, if you can’t look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?”
“So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don’t sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.”
“Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can’t miss.”
“The ability to concentrate and to use your time well is everything if you want to succeed in business – or almost anywhere else for that matter.”
“The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.”
“The most successful businessman is the man who holds onto the old just as long as it is good, and grabs the new just as soon as it is better.”
“The only mistake I ever made was not listening to my gut.”
“The right decision is the wrong decision if it’s made too late.”
“The speed of the boss is the speed of the team.”
“There’s a world of difference between a strong ego, which is essential, and a large ego-which can be destructive.”
“There’s no great mystery to satisfying your customers. Build them a quality product and treat them with respect. It’s that simple.”
“To solve big problems you have to be willing to do unpopular things.”
“We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.”
“What is it that you like doing? If you don’t like it, get out of it, because you’ll be lousy at it. You don’t have to stay with a job for the rest of your life, because if you don’t like it you’ll never be successful in it.”
“You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.”
“Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it.”
“You’ve got to say, I think that if I keep working at this and want it badly enough I can have it. It’s called perseverance.”