“We are always waiting for the perfect brief from the perfect client. It almost never happens [...] Whatever is on your desk right now, that s the one. Make it the best you possibly can.”
“...[D]ivision of labor, in my mind, is one of the dangers of work-based technology. Modern IT infrastructure allows us to break projects into very small, discrete parts and assign each person to do only one of the many parts. In so doing, companies run the risk of taking away employees sense of the big picture, purpose, and sense of completion.”
“Social media allows us to behave in ways that we are hardwired for in the first place - as humans. We can get frank recommendations from other humans instead of from faceless companies.”
“What you of the CHOAM directorate seem unable to understand is that you seldom find real loyalties in commerce ... Men must want to do things of their own innermost drives. People, not commercial organisations or chains of command, are what make great civilizations work, every civilization depends upon the quality of the individuals it produces. If you overorganize humans, over-legalize them, suppress their urge to greatness — they cannot work and their civilization collapses.”
“...After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world. I am strongly of the opinion that the great majority of people will always find these are the moving impulses of our life. But it is only those who do not understand our people, who believe that our national life is entirely absorbed by material motives. We make no concealment of the fact that we want wealth, but there are many other things that we want much more. We want peace and honor, and that charity which is so strong an element of all civilization. The chief ideal of the American people is idealism.”
“If it was my business, I wouldn t talk about it. It is very vulgar to talk about one s business. Only people like stockbroker s do that, and then merely at dinner parties.”
“Then, in the 1980 s, came the paroxysm of downsizing, and the very nature of the corporation was thrown into doubt. In what began almost as a fad and quickly matured into an unshakable habit, companies were restructuring, reengineering, and generally cutting as many jobs as possible, white collar as well as blue . . . The New York Times captured the new corporate order succintly in 1987, reporting that it eschews loyalty to workers, products, corporate structures, businesses, factories, communities, even the nation. All such allegiances are viewed as expendable under the new rules. With survival at stake, only market leadership, strong profits and a high stock price can be allowed to matter .”
“What s Management up to? I whispered to Bennett. My guess is a new acronym, he whispered. Departmental Unification Management Business. He wrote down the ltters on his legal pad. D.U.M.B.”
“International business, once allowed to stalk uncontrolled, killed the local, the small, the quirky.”
“A small profit it better than a big loss”
“To be a leader one has to have followers. To get others to follow is a skill, not a command.”
“The beginning of change doesn’t come from motivation and dangling carrots. It begins with being clear about what you want to get away from.”
“Every telecomm company is as big a corporate welfare bum as you could ask for. Try to imagine what it would cost at market rates to go around to every house in every town in every country and pay for the right to block traffic and dig up roads and erect poles and string wires and pierce every home with cabling. The regulatory fiat that allows these companies to get their networks up and running is worth hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars. If phone companies want to operate in the “free market,” then let them: the FCC could give them 60 days to get all their rotten copper out of our dirt, or we’ll buy it from them at the going scrappage rates. Then, let’s hold an auction for the right to be the next big telecomm company, on one condition: in exchange for using the public’s rights-of-way, you have to agree to connect us to the people we want to talk to, and vice-versa, as quickly and efficiently as you can.”
“The virtues of free enterprise can become distorted by greed & delusion.”
“Note to the wise: whenever someone insists that he wants to buy something from you, but tells you there’s no real value in it yet, two things are happening: he’s lying, and you’re being taken.”
“At the heart of excessive individualism is a broken heart”
“A good golfer’s métier is his or her golfing skill. A great golfer’s métier is his or her golfing skill, coupled with the mastery of good sportsmanship, rendering him or her an ambassador for the sport.”