Tom Peters Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Tom Peters.
Famous Quotes By Tom Peters
I'm about as far from being a flag-waver - you won't find any American flag pins in my drawer - as someone can be. — Tom Peters
Leaders win through logistics. Vision, sure. Strategy, yes. But when you go to war, you need to have both toilet paper and bullets at the right place at the right time. In other words, you must win through superior logistics. — Tom Peters
The race will go to the curious, the slightly mad, and those with an un-satiated passion for learning and dare-deviltry. — Tom Peters
And remember: Everything in business is a paradox. To be excellent, you have to be consistent. When you're consistent, you're vulnerable to attack. Yes, it's a paradox. Now deal with it! — Tom Peters
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. — Tom Peters
The common wisdom is that ... managers have to learn to motivate people. Nonsense. Employees bring their own motivation. — Tom Peters
The widespread availability of information is the only basis for effective day-to-day problem solving, which abets continuous improvement programs. — Tom Peters
Vision is dandy, but sustainable company excellence comes from a huge stable of able managers. — Tom Peters
I don't want an epitaph on my gravestone that says, 'He would have pursued some big dreams in his life, but other people wouldn't let him. — Tom Peters
Develop a respect and reverence for the principle of variation: the idea that the message ain't in the mean, the mode or the median - it's in the differences that occur throughout a population. — Tom Peters
I found myself declaiming, full flower, for an hour on the "utmost importance and urgency" of Blogging, telling him in no uncertain terms that, especially in a high-end niche business, Blogging is "the premier way" to have "intimate conversations" with his Clients. Funny thing, I believe it! — Tom Peters
As far as I'm concerned, the first business leader who was able to establish a cult of personality around his tenure was Lee Iacocca. — Tom Peters
My problem is not that I see all 17 sides of any issue, but I'm equally passionate about all 17 sides simultaneously. — Tom Peters
Are Your Customers saying WOW? — Tom Peters
I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote 'Search.' There was no carefully designed work plan. There was no theory that I was out to prove. — Tom Peters
Public Speaking is a skill that can be studied, polished, perfected. Not only can you get good at it, you can get damn good at it and it makes a heck of a difference. — Tom Peters
Winners must learn to relish change with the same enthusiasm and energy that we have resisted it in the past. — Tom Peters
Like it or not - and often we don't - power is a pervasive phenomenon. From midnight decisions in the Oval Office that risk the lives of young Americans to quarrels over the kitchen table, power is part of every human equation. Yes, it can be - and often is - abused, in business as in all arenas of endeavor. But it can also be used to do great good for great numbers. And as a career-building tool, the slow and steady (and subtle) amassing of power is the surest road to success. — Tom Peters
Business, life itself, is damned hard work if you wanna be good at it. Actually, that's precisely wrong. Business ceases to be work when you're chasing a dream that has engorged you. ("Work should be more fun than fun" - Noel Coward.) And if the passion isn't there. then biotech and plumbing will be equal drags. — Tom Peters
Are you placing enough interesting, freakish, long shot, weirdo bets? — Tom Peters
If silly things were not done, intelligent things would never happen. — Tom Peters
The selfish leader will attempt to lead others for their own gain and for the detriment of others. — Tom Peters
You can
only improve what you measure. — Tom Peters
Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me, Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You. — 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 Peters
If you really want to kill morale, have layoffs every two months for the next two years. — Tom Peters
Passion. The life of an entrepreneur is occasionally exhilarating, and almost always exhausting. Only unbridled passion for the concept is likely to see you through the 17-hour days (month after month) and the painful mistakes that are part and parcel of the start-up process. — Tom Peters
Who, precisely, are your Dreamers? Are their Dreams in Technicolor? Do you allow their most Outrageous Dreams to be seen in public? — Tom Peters
Mastery is great, but even that is not enough. You have to be able to change course without a bead of sweat, or remorse. — Tom Peters
Swipe from the best, then adapt. — Tom Peters
Quite simply, no matter how hard you try, no matter how "open" you are, you'll end up surrounded by "yes people." It's hard not to believe people who are repeating your own ideas. Resist the temptation. — Tom Peters
The good news - and it is largely good news - is that everyone has a chance to stand out. Everyone has a chance to learn, improve, and build up their skills. Everyone has a chance to be a brand worthy of remark — Tom Peters
Oh Lord, there it is again. The question;" What kind of business should I start?" Incidentially, it has a twin that also sets me off: "What should I specialize in during the second year of my MBA studies?" Sorry, but those are two of the most profoundly upsetting questions anyone can ask - upsetting because the answer should be obvious: Do what turns you on, not what the statistics say is best. — Tom Peters
The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity. — Tom Peters
If no one is pissed-off with you then you are dead but just haven't figured it out yet. — Tom Peters
Mistakes are life. Mistakes are not to be tolerated ... they are to be encouraged. The bigger the better. — Tom Peters
How do you humiliate and demean someone and then expect him or her to care about product quality. — Tom Peters
Hire for attitude. Train for skill ... More — Tom Peters
If the person you delegated to does the job twice as well as you would have done it, consider yourself a leader. — Tom Peters
The best leaders ... almost without exception and at every level, are master users of stories and symbols. — Tom Peters
The best kept secret in the global economy today is this: When your service is AWESOME you get so stinking rich you have to buy new bags to carry all the money home. — Tom Peters
Statistically and emotionally, I believe that the way I can be of help to society is by doing what I know and what I've been good at. — Tom Peters
Something mysterious happens to a curious, fully engaged mind - and it happens as often as not, subconsciously. Strange little sparks are set off, connections made, insights triggered — Tom Peters
Listen while you can, so that you can lead when you must. — Tom Peters
In McKinsey's world, all of life is one of two things: strategy or organization. — Tom Peters
I think economics is about passion. Economic progress, whether it is a two-person coffee shop or whether it is Netscape, is about people with brave ideas. Because it is brave to mortgage the house, when you've got two kids, to start a coffee shop. — Tom Peters
OLD: Be No.1 or No.2 in Your Market. NEW: Find a Niche, Create Something New. — Tom Peters
Make an extensive table of project 'deliverables'. Label one column 'as requested'. Create another column labeled 'could be'. Make each 'could be' wild and woolly! — Tom Peters
The unthinkable is thinkable. No: likely. — 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
Customers perceive service in their own unique, idiosyncratic, emotional, irrational, end-of-the-day, and totally human terms. Perception is all there is! — Tom Peters
Progress is mostly the product of rogues. — Tom Peters
To meet the demands of the fast-changing competitive scene, we must simply learn to love change as much as we have hated it in the past. — Tom Peters
Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders. — Tom Peters
Bold botches are to be cherished. — Tom Peters
If you're not confused, you're not paying attention. — Tom Peters
One of the biggest problems of 'In Search of Excellence' is that it focused on giant, publicly-traded companies. There are thousands upon thousands of excellent companies. Some of them are two-person accountancies in a community of three thousand people. — Tom Peters
The dominant culture in most big companies demands punishment for a mistake, no matter how useful, small, invisible ... — Tom Peters
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
A little (or more) boat burning would do many enterprises a world of good. — Tom Peters
Musing on the phrase 'waste of time.' So much more complex than it appears. Many 'wastes of time' small talk, daydreaming are imperatives. — Tom Peters
The new idea either finds a champion or it dies. No ordinary involvement with a new idea provides the energy required to cope with the indifference and resistance that change provokes. — Tom Peters
Organizations exist to serve. Period. Leaders live to serve. Period. — Tom Peters
You can't think your way out of a box; you've got to act. — Tom Peters
Authority never matches responsibility. That's one of the great myths and delusions of all times. Winning managers and individual performers at all levels know that effectiveness means building your own network and creating your own authority. Those who succeed always reach far beyond formal deputation, take initiatives, and take the heat when things go awry. That's true in the military in times of war, true for 200 person manufacturing firms, and true at giant automakers or software companies. — Tom Peters
Effective listening is a professional achievement-achieved only through hard work. — Tom Peters
Divas do it, golfers do it, pilots do it, violists do it, sprinters do it, soldiers do it, surgeons do it, astronauts do it ... only business people think it isn't necessary to train. — Tom Peters
I imagine a school system that recognizes learning is natural, that a love of learning is normal, and that real learning is passionate learning. A school curriculum that values questions above answers ... creativity above fact regurgitation ... individuality above conformity.. and excellence above standardized performance ... And we must reject all notions of 'reform' that serve up more of the same: more testing, more 'standards', more uniformity, more conformity, more bureaucracy. — Tom Peters
The magic formula that successful businesses have discovered is to treat customers like guests and employees like people. — Tom Peters
What is my personal strategy for the next 10 hours? Who can I talk with or what can I volunteer for to learn something new? — Tom Peters
The 10 or 12 artists I have known really well all my life are at least as competitive as professional athletes. They may express it in slightly different terms, but you look at the Jackson Pollocks et al., and they are as interested in wall space in the galleries as Joe Montana is in the percentage of completed passes. So the notion that symphonic conducting, or stage play, or pure art, is not a competitive business is real bullshit. — Tom Peters
As a consumer, you want to associate with brands whose powerful presence creates a halo effect that rubs off on you. — Tom Peters
Without exception, the dominance and coherence of culture proved to be an essential quality of the excellent companies. — Tom Peters
It's not enough to be close to the customer. You've got to be glued to the customer. — Tom Peters
If the other guy is getting better, then you'd better be getting better faster than the other guy is getting better ... or you're getting worse. — Tom Peters
It boils down to studenthood-in-perpetuity / curiosity-in-perpetuity / applied fanatic restlessness. That is, a belief that life is ONE BIG LEARNING EXPERIENCE. Something mysterious happens to a curious, fully engaged mind - and it happens as often as not, subconsciously. Strange little sparks are set off, connections made, insights triggered. The results: an exponentially increased ability to tune up / reinvent / WOW-ize today's project at work. — Tom Peters
Leaders' careers will usually be determined by their handling of one or two critical events that no one could possibly anticipate or plan for. — Tom Peters
You are your projects! — Tom Peters
To sell is above all to master the art and science of listening. — Tom Peters
Creating in all employees the awareness that their best efforts are essential and that they will share in the rewards of the company's success. — Tom Peters
Business is about people. It's about passion. It's about bold ideas, bold small ideas or bold large ideas. — Tom Peters
Perception is all there is. If the customer think he's right, he's right. — Tom Peters
Winston Churchill said that appetite was the most important thing about education. Leadership guru Warren Bennis says he wants to be remembered as 'curious to the end.' David Ogilvy contends that the greatest ad copywriters are marked by an insatiable curiosity 'about every subject under the sun.' — Tom Peters
We are all Michaelangelos. — Tom Peters
Forget all the conventional 'rules' but one. There is one golden rule: Stick to topics you deeply care about and don't keep your passion buttoned inside your vest. An audience's biggest turn-on is the speaker's obvious enthusiasm. If you are lukewarm about the issue, forget it! — Tom Peters
Appreciation, applause, approval, respect - we all love it! — Tom Peters
'In Search of Excellence' was an afterthought, the runt of the McKinsey consulting litter, a hip-pocket project that was never supposed to amount to much. — Tom Peters
An ability to embrace new ideas, routinely challenge old ones, and live with paradox will be the effective leader's premier trait. — Tom Peters
Community organizing is all about building grassroots support. It's about identifying the people around you with whom you can create a common, passionate cause. And it's about ignoring the conventional wisdom of company politics and instead playing the game by very different rules. — Tom Peters
Screw-ups are the mark of excellence. — Tom Peters
I don't believe in holy writ. Buy fifty books or twenty-five books, take three weeks off, read them and make up your own theory. The fact that you end up literally burning twenty-two out of twenty-five books is beside the point. — Tom Peters
There are few things that will take you further in life, than your ability to make a good presentation. — Tom Peters
If you are not confused then you are not paying attention. — Tom Peters
But there's no substitute for getting smarter faster. And the way you get smarter is to screw around vigorously. Try stuff. See what works. See what fails miserably. Learn. Rinse. Repeat. — Tom Peters
It's this simple: You are a brand. You are in charge of your brand. There is no single path to success. And there is no one right way to create the brand called You. Except this: Start today. Or else. — Tom Peters
Rewards should go to teams as a whole. — Tom Peters
Effective visions are lived in details, not broad strokes. — Tom Peters
Steve Jobs is perhaps the most competitive human being I have ever met in my life, and yet I would argue one of the most artistic human beings I have ever met in my life. You can trash the movies all you want, but they do have an artistic component. And yet brutal competition knows no peers when it comes to Hollywood. — Tom Peters
Train everyone lavishly. You can't overspend on training. — Tom Peters
Smile if it kills you. The physiology of smiling diffuses a lot of anger and angst. It makes your body and soul feel better. — Tom Peters