Quotes by Business Executives

Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be.

Jack Welch

Control Your Own Destiny or Someone Else Will

Jack Welch

Honesty is always the best policy, even when it's not the trend.

Sean Covey

One realizes the full importance of time only when there is little of it left. Every man's greatest capital asset is his unexpired years of productive life.

Paul W. Litchfield

I don't believe in just ordering people to do things. You have to sort of grab an oar and row with them.

Harold Geneen

This book is for those of you who are tired of trying to squeeze into constrained categories, who long for a life without limits on who you are or who you will become.

Maureen Chiquet

Supercomputer pioneer Seymour Cray used to deliberately hire for inexperience because it brought him people who "do not usually know what's supposed to be impossible.

Eric Schmidt

Life is not about control. It’s not about getting. It’s not about having. It’s not about knowing. It’s not even about being. Life is eternal, perpetual becoming, or it is nothing. Becoming is not a thing to be known, commanded, or controlled. It is a magnificent, mysterious odyssey to be experienced.

Dee Hock

Community is composed of that which we don't attempt to measure, for which we keep no record and ask no recompense. Most are things we cannot measure no matter how hard we try.

Dee Hock

If you're not happy every morning when you get up leave for work or start to work at home-if you're not enthusiastic about doing that you're not going to be successful.

Donald M. Kendall

Finance is the art of passing currency from hand to hand until it finally disappears

Robert Sarnoff

Instead of playing to win, I was playing not to lose. It reminds me of the story I once heard about two friends being chased by a bear, when one turned to the other and said, "I just realized that I don't need to outrun the bear; I only need to outrun you.

Sean Covey

You can buy a man's time, you can buy a man's physical presence at a certain place, you can even buy a measured number of skilled muscular motions per hour or day. But you cannot buy enthusiasm, you cannot buy initiative, you cannot buy loyalty; you cannot buy the devotion of hearts, minds, and souls. You have to earn these things.

Clarence Francis

For more than three decades, coffee has captured my imagination because it is a beverage about individuals as well as community. A Rwandan farmer. Eighty roast masters at six Starbucks plants on two continents. Thousands of baristas in 54 countries. Like a symphony, coffee's power rests in the hands of a few individuals who orchestrate its appeal. So much can go wrong during the journey from soil to cup that when everything goes right, it is nothing short of brilliant! After all, coffee doesn't lie. It can't. Every sip is proof of the artistry -- technical as well as human -- that went into its creation.

Howard Schultz

The following is a list of statements made many years ago by experts in their fields. At the time they were said they sounded intelligent. With the passing of time, they sound idiotic.

Sean Covey

There is no data on the future.

Laurel Cutler

Work should be personal. For all of us. Not just for the artist and entrepreneur. Work should have meaning for the accountant, the construction worker, the technologist, the manager and the clerk.

Howard Schultz

If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.

Jim Barksdale

Early on I realized that I had to hire people smarter and ore qualified than I was in a number of different fields, and I had to let go of a lot of decision-making. I can't tell you how hard that is. But if you've imprinted your values on the people around you, you can dare to trust them to make the right moves.

Howard Schultz

If we wait until we've satisfied all the uncertainties it may be too late.

Lee Iacocca

It's a long road. Setbacks don't actually matter.

Sundar Pichai

Sometimes it's better not to ask-or to listen-when tell you something can't be done. I didn't ask for permission or approval. I just went ahead and did it.

Michael Dell

Creative thinking begins by embracing your naiveté and rejecting the obvious in favor of the unusual, the extraordinary, the evocative and or the new.

Maureen Chiquet

In a servant leadership culture we learn by choice or example that if we want to be great, we have to serve others respectfully.

Vern Dosch

People want guidance, not rhetoric. They need to know what the plan of action is, and how it will be implemented. They want to be given responsibility to help solve the problem and authority to act on it.

Howard Schultz

Mass advertising can help build brands, but authenticity is what makes them last. If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.

Howard Schultz

The underlying issue in getting women to top positions is what kind of leadership we value and how we teach, assess, and promote “good” leaders in all organizations.

Maureen Chiquet

Bigness comes from doing many small things well. ... Individually they are not very dramatic transactions. Together though they add up.

Edward S. Finkelstein

A mind set in its ways is wasted. Don't do it.

Eric Schmidt

Some are born leaders, some achieve leadership, and some have leadership thrust upon them. Which of these are you, or would you rather not bother?

Maurice Flanagan

There are moments in our lives when we summon the courage to make choices that go against reason, against common sense and the wise counsel of people we trust.

Howard Schultz

So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don't sit there. If we screw it up start over. Try something else. If we wait until we've satisfied all the uncertainties it may be too late.

Lee Iacocca

Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand until it finally disappears.

Robert W. Sarnoff

In an environment where there is a shared vision of excellence, where people can be the best they can be on a daily basis, where they know what is expected of them, understand that reward is linked to performance, and believe they can make a difference because they will be heard, they will make a difference. They will go beyond our expectations and great things will happen.

Frederick Smith