Quotes about business-culture

Jobs also used the meetings to enforce focus. At Robert Friedland's farm, his job had been to prune the apple trees so that they would stay strong, and that became a metaphor for his pruning at Apple. Instead of encouraging each group to let product lines proliferate based on marketing considerations, or permitting a thousand ideas to bloom, Jobs insisted that Apple focus on just two or three priorities at a time. " There is no one better at turning off the noise that is going on around him," Co

...failure promotes success only if you actually take the time to analyze your mistakes.." "Failure has to be separated from fault, and for many people that requires a bit of deprogramming, as we learn early on that they are one and the same." "In this framework, intention is extremely important.

On Wall Street, the lawyers play the same role as medics in war: They come in after the shooting is over to clean up the mess.

Business: It is all about generating employment not about generating money.

Jobs's intensity was also evident in his ability to focus. He would set priorities, aim his laser attention on them, and filter out distractions. If something engaged him- the user interface for the original Macintosh, the design of the iPod and iPhone, getting music companies into the iTunes Store-he was relentless. But if he did not want to deal with something - a legal annoyance, a business issue, his cancer diagnosis, a family tug- he would resolutely ignore it. That focus allowed him to say

One sticking point was that Jobs wanted his payout to be in cash. Amelio insisted that he needed to "have skin in the game" and take the payout in stock that he would agree to hold for at least a year.” Jobs resisted. Finally, they compromised: Jobs would take $120 million in cash and $37 million in stock, and he pledged to hold the stock for at least six months.

One of Job's great strengths was knowing how to focus. " Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do, " he said. " That's true for companies, and it's true for products.

Things to know from books to read

One of Job's business rules was to never be afraid of cannibalizing yourself. " If you don't cannibalize yourself, someone else will," he said. So even though an Iphone might cannibalize sales of an IPod, or an IPad might cannibalize sales of a laptop, that did not deter him.

We kind of missed the boat on that," he recalled. " So we needed to catch up real fast." The mark of an innovative company is not only that it comes up with new ideas first, but also that it knows how to leapfrog when it find itself behind.

People will typically be more enthusiastic where they feel a sense of belonging and see themselves as part of a community than they will in a workplace in which each person is left to his own devices

Jobs described Mike Markkula's maxim that a good company must "impute"- it must convey its values and importance in everything it does, from packaging to marketing. Johnson loved it. It definitely applied to a company's stores. " The store will become the most powerful physical expression of the brand," he predicted. He said that when he was young he had gone to the wood-paneled, art-filled mansion-like store that Ralph Lauren had created at Seventy-second and Madison in Manhattan. " Whenever I

In ancient Rome, when a victorious general paraded through the streets, legend has it that he was sometimes trailed by a servant whose job it was to repeat to him, " Memento Mori": Remember you will die. A reminder of mortality would help the hero keep things in perspective, instill some humility. Job's memento mori had been delivered by his doctors, but it did not instill humility. Instead he roared back after his recovery with even more passion. The illness reminded him that he had nothing to

The unified field theory that ties together Jobs personality and products begins with his most salient trait: his intensity. His silences could be as searing as his rants; he had taught himself to stare without blinking. Sometimes this intensity was charming, in a geeky way, such as when he was explaining the profundity of Bob Dylan's music or why whatever product he was unveiling at that moment was the most amazing thing that Apple had ever made. At other times it could be terrifying, such as w

Edwin Land of Polaroid talked about the intersection of the humanities and science. I like that intersection. There's something magical about that place. There are a lot of people innovating, and that's not the main distinction of my career. The reason Apple resonates with people is that there's a deep current of humanity in our innovation. I think great artists and great engineers are similar in that they both have a desire to express themselves. In fact some of the best people working on the o

The reason they outperformed her was that they accepted each new “product” without trying to understand it. They got behind the new pitch wholeheartedly, even when it was risible and/or made no sense, and then, if a prospective customer had trouble understanding the “product,” they didn’t vocally agree that it sure was difficult to understand, didn’t make a good-faith effort to explain the complicated reasoning behind it, but simply kept hammering on the written pitch. And clearly this was the p

The older I get, the more I see how much motivations matter. The Zune was crappy because the people at Microsoft don't really love music or art the way we do. We won because we personally love music. We made the iPod for ourselves, and when you're doing something for yourself, or your best friend or family, you're not going to cheese out. If you don't love something, you're not going to cheese out. If you don't love something, you're not going to cheese out. If you don't love something, you're n

3 qualities of a good management HonestHungry & Smart.

...the message being sent out by a broken window-the perception it invites-is that the owener of this building and the people of the community around it don't care if this window is broken: They have given up, and anarchy reigns here. Do as you will, because nobody cares.

A company can’t buy true emotional commitment from managers no matter how much it’s willing to spend this is something too valuable to have a price tag. And yet a company can’t afford not to have it.

You don't have to fear your own company being perceived as human. You want it. People don't trust companies they trust people.

The whole purpose of choosing to invest as a career is to let the management be constantly worried about his company and let yourself sip your wine But the opposite happens.

Interestingly, water in a bottle never knows that the bottle gives him the shape, same like those people in the system!!!!

The first step out of the gate has to be knowing where you want to end up. What do you really want from your company?

The first step to solving any problem is to accept one’s own accountability for creating it.

Being relevant to your customers only when you’re trying to sell something means choosing to be irrelevant to them for the rest of the time.

There will be plenty of other problems in the future. This is as good a time as any to get ahead of them.

The economy is in ruins! Bottom line? Good management will defeat a bad economy.

Your company is its own competition and can deliver itself debilitating blows the competition only dreams of.

Instead of waiting for a leader you can believe in, try this: Become a leader you can believe in.

The purpose of leadership is to change the world around you in the name of your values, so you can live those values more fully.

Profitability. Growth. Quality. Exceeding customer expectations. These are not examples of values. These are examples of corporate strategies being sold to you as values.

When you’re a manager, you work for your company. When you’re a leader, your company works for you.

Work/life balance is not about escaping work. It’s about living exactly the way you want to when you’re at work.

What first separates a leader from a normal human being? A leader knows who they are as a human being.

True leaders live their values everywhere, not just in the workplace.

The worst thing in your own development as a leader is not to do it wrong. It’s to do it for the wrong reasons.

When rewards come from an external source instead of an internal source, they’re unreliable, which means they’re dangerous if you grow to depend on them.

Human behavior is only unpredictable and dangerous if you don’t start from humanity in the first place.

Imagine a world where what you say synchs up, not sinks down.

Why live my personal values at work? This is an excellent question to ask. If your attorneys are planning an insanity defense.

Here’s what you need to know most about leadership: Lead your own life first. The only thing in this world that will dependably happen from the top down is the digging of your grave.

The myth of management is that your personal values are irrelevant or inappropriate at work.

It’s impossible for a company to get what it wants most if managers have to make a choice between their own values and company priorities.

Try not to take this the wrong way, but your brain is smarter than you are.

A manager’s emotional commitment is the ultimate trigger for their discretionary effort, worth more than financial, intellectual & physical commitment combined.

You can stuff yourself with emotional fulfillment until it’s dribbling down your chin & your ego will quickly chomp it down and demand more.

Your dreams and the dreams of your company may be different, but they are in no way incompatible.

Providing the ultimate solution to work/life balance: not escaping from work but living the way you want to at work.

Your company really has to work for you before you’ll really work for your company.

What companies want most from their managers is what they most stop their managers from giving. What managers want most from their jobs is what they most stop themselves from getting.

Most managers have plenty of emotional commitment to give to their jobs. If they can be convinced it’s safe and sensible to give it.

What managers want most from companies they stop themselves from getting.What companies want most from managers they stop them from giving.

This is your one and only precious life. Somebody’s going to decide how it’s going to be lived and that person had better be you.

A manager’s emotional commitment is worth more than their financial, intellectual and physical commitment combined.

Emotional commitment is a personal choice. Managers understand this even if their companies don’t.

Emotional commitment means unchecked, unvarnished devotion to the company and its success; any legendary organizational performance is the result of emotionally committed managers.

The company may have captured their minds, their bodies and their pockets, but that doesn’t mean it’s captured their hearts.

Values are deeply held personal beliefs that form your own priority code for living.

Success means: I want to know the work I do means something to somebody and helps make the world, if not a Better place, not a worse one.

Your values are your essence: an undistorted mirror showing you at your pure, attractive best.

Careful now: even a financially rewarding, intellectually stimulating work environment isn’t the same as living your own values.

Values are the individual biases that allow you to decide which actions are true for you alone.

Success for Managers means: I want to be in healthy relationships. I want a real connection with people I spend so much time with.

Let’s get right on top of the bottom line: You must live your personal values at work.

Any expert will tell you that if you want emotionally committed relationships then people must be allowed to be true to who they are.

When you’re not on your own agenda, you’re prey to the agenda of others.

Leadership creates performance in people because it impacts willingness; it’s a matter of modeling, inspiring, and reinforcing.

Management controls performance in people because it impacts skills; it’s a matter of monitoring, analyzing and directing.

To integrate one’s experiences around a coherent and enduring sense of self lies at the core of creating a user’s guide to life.

Leaders are people who know exactly who they are. They know exactly where they want to go. They’re hell-bent on getting there.

Leaders make a lot of mistakes but they admit those mistakes to themselves and change because of them.

Managers know what they want most: to be allowed to achieve success by leveraging who they are, not by compromising it.

The high quality of a company’s customer experience rarely has anything to do with the high price of their product.

Companies should be the best possible place to practice fulfillment, to live out values and to realize deep connectivity and purpose.

The heart of a company’s performance is hardwired to the hearts of its managers.

Do you think your people struggle with being true to themselves? Do their values match up with their work?

Hard-core results come from igniting the massive power of emotional commitment. Are your people committed?

When you don’t know what true for you, everyone else has unusual influence.

To impart a moral responsibility to exercise fairness in leadership builds greater leaders of strong character.

DOOR MONEY” To focus on door money means one is paying so much attention to the amount of money they are making at the door they do not consider there is much more profit to be made inside a venue.

Employees who are not engaged have untapped potential that sours like a perishable item.

In good organizations, leaders are treated with a sense of appreciation and respect by employees; in great organizations, employees are treated with the same esteem by leaders.

When a person is engaged, dedication to their craft, desire to achieve, and relentless commitment to make a difference is palpable. You can see it, hear it, and feel it…and it is contagious!

Standards are not established by your proclamations they are established by your routines.

The key difference between captain and coach? The latter’s opportunities for influence come at moments when play isn't happening,

Your business values can make you soar above the competition.

You may not have connections, or an education, or wealth, but with enough passion and sweat, you can make anything happen.

When you work on something that only has the capacity to make you 5 dollars, it does not matter how much harder you work – the most you will make is 5 dollars.

Formal business situations are likely to be the least revealing because these are the times when all of us are most likely to have our ‘game faces' on.

You are special individual. Never envy others.You never know what they go through.Seek and be inspired by the works of others. Learn their secrets for success.

Despite being a denizen of the digital world, or maybe because he knew all too well its isolating potential, Jobs was a strong believer in face to face meetings. " There's a temptation in our networked age to think that ideas can be developed by email and iChat,"he said."Thats crazy, Creativity comes from spontaneous meetings, from random discussions. You run into someone, you ask what they're doing, you say ' Wow, and soon your cooking up all sorts of ideas." So he had the Pixar building planne

Competition may help us create better products and services but in the end competition really seeks to destroy the opponent. To put him out of the power to compete against you.

A business plan is like a war plan, when you competitors know about it, it's no longer of any use

When you think there is nothing left to improve on, your business dies, for there is no shortage of innovators

Successful business is always almost dishonest

A man who wants to imitate the life of a woman will invariably do some mischief

Conquer your customer as you would a woman

I used to believe that culture was “soft,” and had little bearing on our bottom line. What I believe today is that our culture has everything to do with our bottom line, now and into the future.