Business and Investing
Business, including Peter Drucker
"The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.” Alfred North Whitehead, whoever he is
“The secret of success is to do the common things uncommonly well.” John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
“It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.” Mark Twain
“Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.” Booker T. Washington. Pete’s addendum – “Hey bosses, if you do the first half of that and not the second, that is worse than doing neither.”
“Ability is what you are capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.” Lou Holtz
"It is better to plan for things that do not happen than to have planned for something that does Happen." Mohamed El-Arian
“A good objective of a leader is to help those who are doing poorly to do well and to help those that are doing well to do even better.” Jim Rohn
“With success, some people grow and some people swell.” Ken Green, FOP
“When friends and acquaintances are telling you that you are a genius, before you accept their opinion, take a moment to remember what you always thought of their opinion in the past.” Carl Icahn
"The plural of anecdote is not data." Dr. Spencer Swingle, FOP
"Fool-proof systems seldom appreciate the ingenuity of fools." WIST
“Of all the things I’ve done, the most vital is coordinating the talents of those who work for us and pointing them toward a certain goal.” Walt Disney
“I found that there were these incredibly great people at doing certain things, and you couldn’t replace one of these people with 50 average people. They could do stuff that no number of average people could do.” Steve Jobs
“There is only one valid definition of business purpose: To create a customer.” Peter Drucker
“Business exist to produce results.” Peter Drucker
“Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; its about deliberately choosing to be different.” Michael Porter
“Unless you are retiring this afternoon, you don’t know enough for the rest of your career. You must always be learning.” Pete
“The old model of getting educated in four years and coasting for the next 40 years is obsolete.” Kevin Ng
“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes.” Peter Drucker
“Work keeps us from three great evils: boredom, vice and poverty.” Voltaire
“A friendship founded on business is better than a business founded on friendship.” John D. Rockefeller
“Too many companies believe people are interchangeable. Truly gifted people never are. They have unique talents. Such people cannot be forced into roles they are not suited for, nor should they be.” Warren Bennis
Steps required to accomplish corporate change (from John P. Kotter in Leading Change):
· Establish a sense of urgency
· Create a guiding coalition
· Develop a change vision
· Communicate the vision for buy-in
· Empower broad-based action
· Generate short-term wins
· Never let up
· Incorporate changes in the culture
Advice and admonitions from Pope Francis’ list of 15 “illnesses” – paraphrased:
· Beware of considering yourself immortal, immune or indispensible. Stay up to date. Be self-critical.
· Busy-ness is not the same as accomplishment. Find time for rest and reflection.
· Empathize with others.
· Avoid excessive planning that fails to translate into effective action. Stay open to imagination and innovation.
· Collaborate. Work as a team.
· Don’t depend only on your own views.
· Eliminate unhealthy rivalry and pride.
· Don’t hide behind bureaucracy. Remember, there are real people involved.
· Have courage to speak directly to people instead of gossiping behind their backs.
· Don’t be an apple polisher in hopes that it will get you somewhere.
· Be sincere and warm in your personal relationships.
· It’s not good to mask fear or insecurity by being gruff or grim.
· Accumulating material goods wont fill “emptiness of the heart.”
· Closed circles (cliques) cause disharmony to the organization as a whole.
· Don’t strive for power by discrediting others.
“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” Helen Keller
“You are only as good as your dumbest competitor. Right now there is a lot of competition among airlines to win that award”. Gordon Bethune, former CEO of Continental Airlines
“Were they dead when you hired them or did you kill them on the job?” Larry Sutter (FOP) responding to a manager decrying “deadwood” employees
”The extroverted engineer looks at your shoes while he talks.” Larry Sutter (engineer, FOP)
“Success is getting the right customers… and keeping them”. MBNA quarterly report. MBNA eventually blew up but I still believe in this comment.
The power of vision – “Martin Luther King, Jr. did not say “I have a strategic plan!”.” Lou Holtz
“Leadership consists of nothing but taking responsibility for everything that goes wrong and giving your subordinates credit for everything that goes well.” Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Listen, don’t talk. If you must talk, ask questions.” Walt Mahler
“Risk not thy whole wad” – God, when he was a commodity trader
“Please pre-pay if you have bad credit” – sign on a gas pump in Garden City, KS
“The meek may inherit the earth but they won’t get the mineral rights.” Or…
“The meek may inherit the earth but in the meantime they can’t use it for collateral.”
“Our real problem is not our strength today: it is the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow. Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Business is the ultimate test of your ability to work within a team.” Pete
“Business is about solving someone else’s problems. Solve their problem and they will give you cash, which solves your problem.” Dr. Michael Swanson, Wells Fargo
“The successful person has unusual skill at dealing with conflict and ensuring the best outcome for all.” Sun Tzu
“Getting a promotion means I can worry less about stuff that I wasn’t worried about anyway and worry more about what I was already worried about.” Pete
“I’d wish you good luck but you wouldn’t know what to do with it”. Alec Baldwin’s character in Glengarry Glen Ross
“Girls, when I was growing up my Mom used to say to me, “Tom, finish your dinner, people in China and India are starving.” My advice to you is: Girls, finish your homework – people in China and India are starving for your jobs.” Thomas Friedman
“In China today, Bill Gates is Britney Spears. In America today, Britney Spears is Britney Spears – and that is our problem.” Thomas Friedman
“Rules are important but when policies and procedures outweigh brains and balls, I’m in the wrong place.” Pete
“Some days, phone tag is the only exercise I get.” Pete
“Volume is vanity and profit is sanity and we’re far more interested in being sane than we are in being vain.” Pat Tracy (CEO Dot Foods).
“I believe that over the long run, a company gets the investors that it deserves.” Robert Silberman (CEO Strayer Education).
“The responsibility of leadership is one of shaping our own and others’ lives, hopefully for the better. Delorese Ambrose
“In a market economy, the decision-making ability naturally flows to people who create value and away from those who don’t.” Charles Koch, who views his company (Koch Industries) not as a product focused company but rather “a collection of capabilities on a continuous search to create value.”
“Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value.” Michael Porter. See also his “Five Forces” for analysis of a Company’s competitive position: The threat of new competition, the threat of substitute products or services, bargaining power of customers, bargaining power of suppliers, and intensity of competitive rivalry.
“If you want to make minor, incremental changes and improvements, work on practices, behavior and attitude. But if you want to make significant, quantum improvement, work on paradigms.” Steven Covey
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, or the most intelligent but the ones most responsive to change.’ Charles Darwin in On The Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection. Bet you don’t remember it that way!
“Today’s cash cows could become tomorrow’s hamburgers.” Jason Jennings
“The crazier the times are, the more important it is for leaders to develop and trust their intuition.” Tom Peters
“Agriculture is a business. Farming without a financial motive is gardening.” Russ Parsons
“The stock market has a very efficient way of transferring wealth from the impatient to the patient.” Warren Buffet
“Selling at very low prices is not a remedy for having failed to sell at high ones.” John Maynard Keynes
“I left home with a pocket full of money, now I’ve got a pocket full of receipts. It’s time to go home.” Pete
“I don’t trust anyone’s judgment completely, not even my own.” Pete
“CEO is an abbreviation for a Latin term meaning “You can’t blame anybody else”.” Pete
“The ultimate responsibility of a leader is to facilitate other people’s development as well as his own.” Fred Pryor
“The best companies assume that each individual wants to make a difference in the world and be respected. Is that a surprise?” Paul Ames
“It’s the little things that make big things possible. Only close attention to the fine details of any operation makes the operation first class”. J. Willard Marriott
“A farmer is always going to be rich next year” Philemon
“I’ve decided I either want to farm or be rich”. Dave Laverentz (FOP)
“He’s a good kid but there’s not a heckuva lot of demand for good kids anymore”. Ancel Armstrong (FOP)
“A leader knows what’s best to do. A manager knows merely how best to do it.” Ken Adelman
“High expectations are the key to everything.” Sam Walton
“Everybody has a strategy, until I hit them.” Mike Tyson
“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art.” Andy Warhol
“Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without Hades.” Frank Borman, CEO Eastern Airlines (bankrupt)
“No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else.” Bill Joy (Sun Microsystems)
“No two countries have fought a war once McDonalds was present in both countries.” Thomas Friedman
“With every pair of hands you get a free brain.” Greg Glunz, FOP
“Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.” Woody Allen
“There are two kinds of men who never amount to anything. Those who cannot do what they are told, and those who can do nothing else.” WIST
“Be slow to hire and quick to fire. It may not sound like it but that is the most humane way to run the business.” Jim Moore, CEO of PolyPipe and FOP
“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” Theodore Roosevelt now to put it into business terms…
“If you make a bad decision, we need to talk about that. If you make a good decision, good for you and for the company. If you make no decision, we need to get rid of you and find someone who will make a decision.” Les Carmichael, CEO of Taylor Trucking and FOP
“You manage things, you lead people.” Grace Murray Hopper
“People do what you inspect, not what you expect.” Most recently by Del Miles (FOP).
“Economists were invented so as to make astrology appear credible.’ John Maynard Keynes (economist).
“I had the right to remain silent. But I did not have the ability.” Ron White
“Compounding is mankind’s greatest invention because it allows for the reliable, systematic accumulation of wealth.” Albert Einstein
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” Thomas Edison
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” Aldous Huxley
“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.” Niccolo Machiavelli
Brought to you by the Committee to Rally Against Progress (the old C.R.A.P.), some forecasts to remember he next time some committee decides that your idea is dumb:
· “Everything that can be invented has been invented”. Charles H. Duell, commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1889
· “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers“. Thomas Watson, Founder and Chairman of IBM, 1943
· “There is no reason for any individuals to have a computer in their home”. Ken Olsen, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp, 1977
· “Heavier than air flying machines are impossible”. Lord Kelvin, President Royal Society, 1895
· “Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value”. Marshal Foch, Professor of strategy
· “Who the h@$l wants to hear actors talk”? Harry Warner, Warner Brothers Studios, 1927
A whole bunch from Peter Drucker, the most influential business thinker ever
“Long-range planning does not deal with future decisions. It deals with the future of present decisions.” Peter Drucker
“There is only one valid definition of business purpose: To create a customer.” Peter Drucker
“Businesses exist to produce results.” Peter Drucker
“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results, not attributes.” Peter Drucker
“Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things.” Peter Drucker
“They are called management “gurus” because “charlatans” is too long for a headline.” Peter Drucker
Peter Drucker’s Five Questions:
· What is our mission?
· Who is our customer?
· What does the customer value?
· What are our results?
· What is our plan?
“Organizations are no longer built on force but on trust.” Peter Drucker
“The individual is the central, rarest, most precious capital resource of our society.” Peter Drucker
“The best way to predict your future is to create it”
“The only thing that we know about the future is that it will be different.”
“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.”
“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old”
“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.”
“The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say "I." And that's not because they have trained themselves not to say "I." They don't think "I." They think "we"; they think "team." They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don't sidestep it, but "we" gets the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.”
“No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it.”
“Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.”
“People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.”
“Business has only two functions — marketing and innovation.”
“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes”
“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.”
“There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.”
“Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.”
“Results are obtained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems. ”
“Your first and foremost job as a leader is to take charge of your own energy and then help to orchestrate the energy of those around you.”
“The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.”
“Management by objectives works – if you know the objectives. Ninety percent of the time you don’t.”
“People in any organization are always attached to the obsolete - the things that should have worked but did not, the things that once were productive and no longer are.”
“Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship...the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.”
“The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers.
The true dangerous thing is asking the wrong question.”
“Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window. ”
“This defines entrepreneur and entrepreneurship - the entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.”
“Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not "making friends and influencing people", that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.”
“So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.”
“When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course. ”
“The companies that refused to make hard choices, or refused to admit that anything much was happening, fared badly. If they survive, it is only because their respective governments will not let them go under.”
“The three most charismatic leaders in this century inflicted more suffering on the human race than almost any trio in history: Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. What matters is not the leader's charisma. What matters is the leader's mission.”
“The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.”
“Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.”
“Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.”
My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.”
“No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.”
“Checking the results of a decision against its expectations shows executives what their strengths are, where they need to improve and where they lack knowledge or information.”
“Executives owe it to their organization and fellow workers not to tolerate nonperforming individuals in important jobs.”
“We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.”
“We all have a vast number of areas in which we have no talent or skill and little chance of becoming even mediocre. In those areas, knowledge workers should not take on work, jobs and assignments. It takes far more energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.”
“A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge.”
“Accept the fact that we have to treat almost anybody as a volunteer.”
“Today, knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement.”
Investing
“Time is your friend. Impulse is your enemy.” John Bogle
“If you can’t save enough money, be really nice to your kids.” Dan Ariely
“Invest in businesses that any idiot can run – because sooner or later, an idiot is going to be running it.” Peter Lynch
“The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.” Gary Schilling
“Return decrease as motion increases.” Warren Buffett
“China is the only major country that will get old before it gets rich.” Gary Schilling
“What is smart at one price is dumb at another.” Warren Buffett
“The risks of being out of the game are huge compared to the risks of being in it.” Warren Buffett
“Risk comes from not knowing what you are doing.” Warren Buffett
“The key to making money in stocks is to not get scared out of them.” Peter Lynch
“When you feel like bragging it is probably time to sell.” John Neff
“Never buy anything from someone who is out of breath.” Burton Malkiel
“Trust in time, rather than timing.” Burton Malkiel
“Know what you own and why you own it.” Peter Lynch
“No strategy can make up for inadequate savings or premature retirement.” Rob Arnott
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” Benjamin Franklin
