Tom Peters

All business success rests on something labeled a sale, which at least momentarily weds company and customer.

If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down the shade.

The magic formula that successful businesses have discovered is to treat customers like guests and employees like people.

Leaders understand the ultimate power of relationships.

Celebrate what you want to see more of.

Mittelstand companies are incredibly focused and almost always family-run. The young men and women go through the apprenticeship system and learn that the goal is excellence.

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.

Winners must learn to relish change with the same enthusiasm and energy that we have resisted it in the past.

If your company has a clean-desk policy, the company is nuts and you're nuts to stay there.

A passive approach to professional growth will leave you by the wayside.

Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing layout, processes, and procedures.

I don't want the 35-year-olds in my audience to think of me as as 'pops' giving the kind of advice that only 65-year-olds can understand.

One percent improvement in 1000 things is better than 1000 improvement in one thing.

South Africa has all the tools to compete in the new global village - an eager workforce, ready to take on any challenge.

Stop being conned by the old mantra that says, 'Leaders are cool, managers are dweebs.' Instead, follow the Peters Principle: Leaders are cool. Managers are cool too!

Almost all quality improvement comes via simplification of design, manufacturing... layout, processes, and procedures.

Everyone has a chance to learn, improve, and build up their skills.

Design is so critical it should be on the agenda of every meeting in every single department.

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.

I endorse a lot of people - sometimes people say I endorse too many books. And my response has always been the same: If I can get one case study that can give me one good idea that I can implement for $25, or for these days one-third of that on Kindle, I've gotten a very good deal.

The whole secret to our success is being able to con ourselves into believing that we're going to change the world because statistically we are unlikely to do it.

If youre not confused youre not paying attention.

Print-based libraries developed in an age of scarce printed resources.

The top athletes are consummate pros who work obsessively at their craft. Approach yours the same way.

As a consumer you want to associate with brands whose powerful presence creates a halo effect that rubs off on you.

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.

I don't read many business books. I read good fiction. Business is about people, so my favorite business books are anything by Dickens.

Excellent firms don't believe in excellence - only in constant improvement and constant change.

Communication is everyone's panacea for everything.

Today brands are everything, and all kinds of products and services - from accounting firms to sneaker makers to restaurants - are figuring out how to transcend the narrow boundaries of their categories and become a brand surrounded by a Tommy Hilfiger-like buzz.

For the blue-collar worker, the driving force behind change was factory automation using programmable machine tools. For the office worker, it's office automation using computer technology: enterprise-resource-planning systems, groupware, intranets, extranets, expert systems, the Web, and e-commerce.

The workplace revolution that transformed the lives of blue-collar workers in the 1970s and 1980s is finally reaching the offices and cubicles of the white-collar workers.

As a consumer, you want to associate with brands whose powerful presence creates a halo effect that rubs off on you.

Vision is dandy, but sustainable company excellence comes from a huge stable of able managers.

Anybody who is an entrepreneur is a person who essentially has impaired judgment. The odds of success are zilch.

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.

Give a lot, expect a lot, and if you don't get it, prune.

A passive approach to professional growth will leave you by the wayside.

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.

Mastery is great, but even that is not enough. You have to be able to change course without a bead of sweat, or remorse.

The widespread availability of information is the only basis for effective day to day problem solving which abets continuous improvement programs.

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.

If you really want to kill morale, have layoffs every two months for the next two years.

The dominant culture in most big companies demands punishment for a mistake no matter how useful small invisible...

I think it's wonderful to save the world, but you need to be part of the world, too.

I know it sounds crazy, but you've got to let what you're going to do find you, rather than you pursuing it.

'In Search of Excellence' - even the title - is a reminder that business isn't dry, dreary, boring, or by the numbers. Life at work can be cool - and work that's cool isn't confined to Tiger Woods, Yo-Yo Ma, or Tom Hanks. It's available to all of us and any of us.

Leaders don't create followers, they create more leaders.

Remember my mantra: distinct... or extinct.

Test fast, fail fast, adjust fast.

One simply cannot pay tribute to Stephen Covey without saying at the outset that he was a lovely human being.

If you're not confused, you're not paying attention.

Business is about people. It's about passion. It's about bold ideas, bold small ideas or bold large ideas.

My problem is not that I see all 17 sides of any issue, but I'm equally passionate about all 17 sides simultaneously.

All white-collar work is project work. The single salient fact that touches all of our lives is that work is being reinvented.

'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.

There is no such thing as a minor lapse of integrity

We found that the most exciting environments, that treated people very well, are also tough as nails. There is no bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo... excellent companies provide two things simultaneously: tough environments and very supportive environments.

Stellar teams are invariably made up of quirky individuals who typically rub each other raw, but they figure out - with the spiritual help of a gifted leader - how to be their peculiar selves and how to win championships as a team. . . at the same time.