Tom Peters > Quotes

“Life is pretty simple: You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is the doing something else.”
― Tom Peters

“If you're not confused, you're not paying attention.”
― Tom Peters, Thriving on Chaos: Handbook for a Management Revolution – The #1 New York Times Bestseller for an Upside-Down Economic World

“There is no such thing as a minor lapse of integrity”
― Tom Peters

“If I read a book that cost me $20 and I get one good idea, I've gotten one of the greatest bargains of all time.”
― Tom Peters

“The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity.”
― Tom peters

“Underpromise;overdeliver.”
― Tom Peters

“Leaders trust their guts. "Intuition" is one of those good words that has gotten a bad rap. For some reason, intuition has become a "soft" notion. Garbage! Intuition is the new physics. It's an Einsteinian, seven-sense, practical way to make tough decisions. Bottom line, circa 2001 to 2010: The crazier the times are, the more important it is for leaders to develop and to trust their intuition.”
― Tom Peter

“Branding is about everything.”
― Tom Peters, The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue EXCELLENCE

“The little people will get even, which is one of a thousand reasons why they are not little people at all. If you're a jerk as a leader, you will be torpedoed. And usually it won't be by your vice presidents; it will be on the loading dock at 3am when no supervisors are around.”
― Tom Peters

“Unless you walk out into the unknown, the odds of making a profound difference in your life are pretty low.”
― Tom Peters

“Many of the innovative companies got their best product ideas from customers. That comes from listening, intently and regularly.”
― Thomas J. Peters, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies

“Only those who constantly retool themselves stand a chance of staying employed in the years ahead.”
― Tom Peters

“A while back, I came across a line attributed to IBM founder Thomas Watson. If you want to achieve excellence, he said, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.”
― Tom Peters

“Communication is everyone's panacea for everything.”
― Tom Peters

“Organizations exist to serve. Period. Leaders live to serve. Period.”
― Tom Peters

“The “Excellence Standard” is not about Grand Outcomes. In Zenlike terms, all we have is today. If the day’s work cannot be assessed as Excellent, then the oceanic overall goal of Excellence has not been advanced. Period.”
― Tom Peters, The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue EXCELLENCE

“Most corporations fail to tolerate the creative fanatic who has been the driving force behind most major innovations. Innovations, being far removed from the mainstream of the business, show little promise in the early stages of development. Moreover, the champion is obnoxious, impatient, egotistic, and perhaps a bit irrational in organizational terms. As a consequence, he is not hired. If hired, he is not promoted or rewarded. He is regarded as “not a serious person,” “embarrassing,” or”
― Thomas J. Peters, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies

“Far too many managers have lost sight of the basics, in our opinion: quick action, service to customers, practical innovation, and the fact that you can’t get any of these without virtually everyone’s commitment.”
― Thomas J. Peters, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies

“The best leaders...almost without exception and at every level, are master users of stories and symbols.”
― Tom Peters

“GIVE THE WORLD A CLEAR PICTURE OF WHO YOU ARE.”
― Tom Peters, The Brand You 50 (Reinventing Work): Fifty Ways to Transform Yourself from an 'Employee' into a Brand That Shouts Distinction, Commitment, and Passion!

“If things seem under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” —Mario Andretti, race-car driver”
― Tom Peters, The Circle of Innovation: You Can't Shrink Your Way to Greatness

“If you are not confused then you are not paying attention.”
― Tom Peters

“Fail faster. Succeed sooner.” — David Kelley, founder IDEO”
― Tom Peters, The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence

“(Recuerde: Cuando se trata de innovación, el mayor Enemigo somos nosotros mismos y, aterrador-pero-cierto, ¡nuestros éxitos más preciados del pasado!).”
― Tom Peters, Detalles importantes: 163 formas de alcanzar la excelencia

“Reward excellent failures. Punish mediocre successes.” Those”
― Tom Peters, The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence

“I am often asked by would-be entrepreneurs seeking escape from life within huge corporate structures: “How do I build a small firm for myself?” The answer seems obvious: Buy a very large one and just wait. —Paul Ormerod, economist, Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinction and Economics”
― Tom Peters, The Excellence Dividend: Meeting the Tech Tide with Work that Wows and Jobs that Last

“The greatest difficulty in the world is not for people to accept new ideas, but to make them forget old ideas.”
― Tom Peters

“All human beings are entrepreneurs,” Mr. Yunus states. “When we were in the caves we were all self-employed … finding our food, feeding ourselves. That’s where the human history began … As civilization came we suppressed it. We became labor because [they] stamped us, ‘You are labor.’ We forgot that we are entrepreneurs.”
― Tom Peters, The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue Excellence

“Harvard’s Theodore Levitt states the case as well as anyone else: The trouble with much of the advice business gets today about the need to be more vigorously creative is that its advocates often fail to distinguish between creativity and innovation. Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things…. A powerful new idea can kick around unused in a company for years, not because its merits are not recognized, but because nobody has assumed the responsibility for converting it from words into action. Ideas are useless unless used. The proof of their value is only in their implementation. Until then, they are in limbo. If you talk to the people who work for you, you’ll discover that there is no shortage of creativity or creative people in American business. The shortage is of innovators. All too often, people believe that creativity automatically leads to innovation. It doesn’t. Creative people tend to pass the responsibility for getting down to brass tacks to others. They are the bottleneck. They make none of the right kind of effort to help their ideas get a hearing and a try…. The fact that you can put a dozen inexperienced people in a room and conduct a brainstorming session that produces exciting new ideas shows how little relative importance ideas themselves have…. Idea men constantly pepper everybody with proposals and memorandums that are just brief enough to get attention, to intrigue and sustain interest — but too short to include any responsible suggestions for implementation. The scarce people are the ones who have the know-how, energy, daring, and staying power to implement ideas…. Since business is a “get-things-done” institution, creativity without action-oriented follow-through is a barren form of behavior. In a sense, it is irresponsible.”
― Thomas J. Peters, In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies

“«Las dos cosas más poderosas que existen: una palabra amable y un gesto considerado». –Ken Langone, cofundador de Home Depot”
― Tom Peters, Detalles importantes: 163 formas de alcanzar la excelencia