Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Failing to differentiate among employees — and holding on to bottom-tier performers — is actually the cruelest form of management there is.
The binders, the charts, the grids may seem formidable, but the meetings themselves are built around informality, trust, emotion and humor.
Some people have better ideas than others; some are smarter or more experienced or more creative. But everyone should be heard and respected.
No company, small or large, can win over the long run without energized employees who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it.
Short cycle business are being impacted by credit, and are being impacted by gasoline prices, food, distribution businesses, chemical business.
Business success is less a function of grandiose predictions than it is a result of being able to respond rapidly to real changes as they occur.
The team with the best players usually does win - this is why you need to invest the majority of your time and energy in developing your people.
With leadership the question at the beginning of the day is, 'how far can we take this...how big can we grow it...and how fast can we get there?'
Business is a game, and as with all games, the team that puts the best people on the field and gets them playing together wins. It's that simple.
Arrogance is a killer, and wearing ambition on one's sleeve can have the same effect. There is a fine line between arrogance and self-confidence.
Six Sigma is a quality program that, when all is said and done, improves your customers' experience, lowers your costs, and builds better leaders.
A company has only so much money and managerial time. Winning leaders invest where the payback is the highest. They cut their losses everywhere else.
The world will belong to passionate, driven leaders - people who not only have enormous amounts of energy, but who can energize those whom they lead.
Globalization is now no longer an objective but an imperative, as markets open and geographic barriers become increasingly blurred and even irrelevant.
An overburdened, overstretched executive is the best executive, because he or she doesn't have the time to meddle, to deal in trivia, to bother people.
If work is just going in every day and getting a check, it's an ugly life. When you can make work a meaningful purpose, you've hit the jackpot for people.
You can't grow long-term if you can't eat short-term. Anybody can manage short. Anybody can manage long. Balancing those two things is what management is.
My main job was developing talent. I was a gardener providing water and other nourishment to our top 750 people. Of course, I had to pull out some weeds, too.
The most important quality of leadership is intellectual honesty. The reality principle - the ability to see the world as it really is, not as you wish it were.
One of the things about leadership is that you cannot be a moderate, balanced, thoughtful, careful articulator of policy. You've got to be on the lunatic fringe.
If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it you almost don't have to manage them.
The essence of competitiveness is liberated when we make people believe that what they think and do is important - and then get out of their way while they do it.
Globalization has taken a hit in that there is some sand in the gears because most of us have supply chains that are all over the world that we've had to lengthen.
Strong managers who make tough decisions to cut jobs provide the only true job security in today's world. Weak managers are the problem. Weak managers destroy jobs.
Its a marathon, its not a sprint. Ten years. Fifteen years. You've got to get up everyday, with a new idea, a new spin, and you've got to bring it to work, every day
I believe social responsibility begins with a strong, competitive company. Only a healthy enterprise can improve and enrich the lives of people and their communities.
Approach every meeting with a purposeful, high-energy, ready-to-make-a-contribution attitude, and watch how fast leadership’s perception of you follows your behavior.
The thing it taught me was that winning's a helluva lot more fun than losing. It also taught me that the team with the best players that worked together the best wins.
Keep learning; don't be arrogant by assuming that you know it all, that you have a monopoly on the truth; always assume that you can learn something from someone else.
If you don't have public hangings for bad culture in a company, if you don't take people out and let them say, they went home to spend more time with the family. It's crazy.
Leadership is helping other people grow and succeed. it is not just about you. It's all about them.... everyone deserves a chance.... you can never let yourself be a victim.
Drucker said: 'If you weren't already in this business, would you enter it today? And if not, what are you going to do about it?' ... Simple, right? But incredibly powerful.
They were making a deal for a property that clearly was a property that we wanted to own, so we had to act, and act as quickly as we could, and make the offer more attractive.
Set stretch goals. Don't ever settle for mediocrity. The key to stretch is to reach for more than you think is possible. Don't sell yourself short by thinking that you'll fail.
I'm not perfect, but if there are any points given for caring about people with every fiber of your being and giving life all you've got every day, then I suppose I have a shot.
Globalization has changed us into a company that searches the world, not just to sell or to source, but to find intellectual capital - the world's best talents and greatest ideas.
Your goal, in other words, should be to make your bosses smarter, your team more effective, and the whole company more competitive because of your energy, creativity, and insights.
CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It's just cultural. People just don't want to do it.
The story about GE that hasn't been told is the value of an informal place. I think it's a big thought. I don't think people have ever figured out that being informal is a big deal.
Take lack of candor. ... I'm not talking about boldface lying, but a tendency to withhold information. That behavior is far more common, and it frustrates teams and bosses to no end.
The operative assumption today is that someone, somewhere, has a better idea; and the operative compulsion is to find out who has that better idea, learn it, and put it into action-fast.
In every company, differentiation is never more important than it is in times of trouble, and that's the time when everyone tends to go to the well and equalize rather than differentiate.
Get the best player because whether it's soccer or whether it's anything else the team with the best players wins. So focus your energy on getting the best and getting rid of the weakest.
The best way to support dreams and stretch is to set apart small ideas with big potential, then give people positive role models and the resources to turn small projects into big businesses.
One of the jobs of a manager is to instill confidence, pump confidence into your people. And when you've got somebody who's raring to go and you can smell it and feel it, give 'em that shot.
In difficult times your best must be hugged, loved, kissed, rewarded, paid - everything. And your worst must be the people that leave, because your best are going to take you to the next game.
No one can guarantee you a job other than satisfied customers. That's the only thing that works. Nothing creates work other than products and services you provide that create satisfied customers.
People aren't the same. Business is, in my opinion, all about the team that fields the best players. It's not about an idea. An idea goes away. Somebody catches up with it. It's not about a widget.
The record results for the third quarter once again demonstrate the ability of GE's diverse mix of leading global businesses to deliver top-line growth, increased margins and strong cash generation.
Getting every employee's mind into the game is a huge part of what a CEO job is all about. Taking everyone's best ideas and transferring them to others is the secret. There's nothing more important.