Best business & company Quotes | Short & Famous Sayings

“I don't think there is room for 'artistic temperament.' Professional artists understand art is a business. If businesses ran their companies like many artists do their careers, they would not stay open a year.”

Ifs Thinking Years Art Artist Rooms Business Company Careers Art Is Artistic Ran Temperament Artistic Temperament

Author:Jack White

“I was actually a fruitarian at that point in time. I ate only fruit. Now I'm a garbage can like everyone else. And we were about three months late in filing a fictitious business name so I threatened to call the company Apple Computer unless someone suggested a more interesting name by five o'clock that day. Hoping to stimulate creativity. And it stuck. And that's why we're called Apple.”

Three Names Interesting Business Company Creativity Five Months Genius Computer Late Fruit Stuck Clock Apples Threatened Garbage Three Months Filing Garbage Cans

Author:Steve Jobs

“There's a lot of symbolism to your return. Is that going to be enough to reinvigorate the company with a sense of magic?”

Enough Business Company Magic Return Symbolism

Author:Steve Jobs

“You're missing it. This is not a one-man show. What's reinvigorating this company is two things: One, there's a lot of really talented people in this company who listened to the world tell them they were losers for a couple of years, and some of them were on the verge of starting to believe it themselves. But they're not losers. What they didn't have was a good set of coaches, a good plan. A good senior management team. But they have that now.”

People Men World Years Believe Two Shows Business Company Plans Team Missing Couple Management Starting Coaches Two Things One Man Loser Senior Verge Missing It Senior Management

Author:Steve Jobs

“The problem with the Internet startup craze isn't that too many people are starting companies; it's that too many people aren't sticking with it. That's somewhat understandable, because there are many moments that are filled with despair and agony, when you have to fire people and cancel things and deal with very difficult situations. That's when you find out who you are and what your values are.”

People Moments Problem Values Difficult Deals Business Company Situation Fire Internet Despair Filled Who You Are Starting Agony Difficult Situations Craze

Book:Motivating Thoughts of Steve Jobs

Source: Motivating Thoughts of Steve Jobs

“Companies, as they grow to become multi-billion-dollar entities, somehow lose their vision. They insert lots of layers of middle management between the people running the company and the people doing the work. They no longer have an inherent feel or a passion about the products. The creative people, who are the ones who care passionately, have to persuade five layers of management to do what they know is the right thing to do.”

“The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.”

People Business Company Liberty Failing Worst Crime Failure Profit Libertarian Libertarianism

Author:Samuel Gompers

“People are definitely a company's greatest asset. It doesn't make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps.”

Source: Mary Kay, You Can Have it All: Lifetime Wisdom from America's Foremost Woman Entrepreneur

“For a hot-shot CEO taking over a troubled company, mass firings are the ultimate quick fix, the accounting equivalent of crack: cheap, easy to score, instantly gratifying, and highly addictive.”

Easy Business Company Mass Shots Ultimate Hot Score Cracks Ceo Unemployment Accounting Firing Quick Fixes Hot Shots

Book:Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America

Source: Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America

“if companies are in business solely to make money, no consumer can fully trust what they do or say.”

Ifs Business Company Profit Making Money Consumers

Author:Anita Roddick

“I don't think I'm a risk-taker. I don't think any entrepreneur is. I think that's one of those myths of commerce. The new entrepreneur is more values-led: you do what looks risky to other people because that's what your convictions tell you to do. Other companies would say I'm taking risks, but that's my path - it doesn't feel like risk to me.”

People Thinking Feels Looks Values Business Company Path Risk Entrepreneur Conviction Myth Commerce Taking Risks

Author:Anita Roddick

“Why should how I act in my workplace be any different from how I interact with my family at home? It's making sure the company runs on feminine principles where the major ethic is care.”

Should Different Home Care Running Business Company Principles Majors Ethics My Family Feminine Workplace

Author:Anita Roddick

“I run my company according to feminine principles, principles of caring, making intuitive decisions, not getting hung up on hierarchy or all those dreadfully boring business-school management ideas; having a sense of work as being part of your life, not separate from it; putting your labor where your love is; being responsible to the world in how you use your profits; recognizing the bottom line should stay at the bottom.”

“The degree to which the opportunity to use power effectively is granted to or withheld from individuals is one operative difference between those companies which stagnate and those which innovate.”

Use Opportunity Individual Differences Business Company Power Degrees Granted

Book:Change Masters

Source: Change Masters

“There is at least one point in the history of any company when you have to change dramatically to rise to the next level of performance. Miss that moment - and you start to decline.”

Moments Next Levels Business Company Missing Performances That Moment Decline Missing You Next Level

Author:Andy Grove

“In the biggest companies, seek out the most useless positions: those in consultancy, appraisal, research, and study. The more useless your position, the less possible it will be to assess your 'contribution to the firm's assets.”

Work Business Company Study Position Research Useless Firm Contribution Assets Appraisal

Book:Bonjour Laziness: Why Hard Work Doesn't Pay

Source: Bonjour Laziness: Why Hard Work Doesn't Pay

“What you do is ultimately pointless. You could be replaced any day of the week with the first moron who walks in the door. So work as little as possible, and spend a little time (not too much, though) 'selling yourself' and 'networking' so that you will have backup and will be untouchable (and untouched) the next time the company is restructured.”

Firsts Littles Next Work Walks Business Company Too Much Doors Week Selling Replaced Next Time Networking Pointless Little Time Moron Untouchables Days Of The Week Backup Selling Yourself

Author:Corinne Maier

“although the typist has disappeared, her work has not: now you do it yourself. ... Since most companies have reduced the managerial ranks, there are fewer and fewer bosses, so you become a manger, his boss, and his secretary all rolled into one.”

Work Business Company Boss Fewer Secretary Do It Yourself

Book:Bonjour Laziness: Why Hard Work Doesn't Pay

Source: Bonjour Laziness: Why Hard Work Doesn't Pay

“Running a company on market research is like driving while looking in the rear view mirror.”

Running Views Business Company Research Mirrors Driving Market Research Rear View Rear View Mirror

Author:Anita Roddick

“Now, if the Standard Oil Company were the only concern in the country guilty of the practices which have given it monopolistic power, this story never would have been written. Were it alone in these methods, public scorn would long ago have made short work of the Standard Oil Company. But it is simply the most conspicuous type of what can be done by these practices. The methods it employs with such acumen, persistency, and secrecy are employed by all sorts of business men, from corner grocers up to bankers. If exposed, they are excused on the ground that this is business.”

Source: The History of the Standard Oil Company

“You never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose, nor a body to kick.”

Soul Body Loses Justice Business Company Expected Corporations Kicks

Author:Edward Thurlow, 1st Baron Thurlow

“Let's face it: Most companies in most industries have a kind of tunnel vision. They chase the same opportunities that everyone else is chasing, they miss the same opportunities that everyone else is missing. It's the companies that see a different game that win big. The most important question for innovators today is: What do you see that the competition doesn't see?”

“The fact that used cars is our largest category is a good example. We would not have sat in a conference room and said, "Hey, how about used cars?" So what can be learned that is extensible to other companies is to ask what are your customers doing with your products that maybe you didn't anticipate that they would do? How do you think of your customers as your research and development lab, as opposed to having an R&D lab at headquarters?”

“I think Google's founders are both a couple of guys with some high ideals which have been to some degree reflected in the way the company has been run in terms of its having a very good workplace and good employee programs, and now that they're going public they want in some ways to be able to ensure that that kind of approach continues. So they've effectively put in place this notion of "Don't Be Evil".”

Thinking Way Want Kind Has Beens Running Able Guy Evil Term Business Company Couple Degrees Approach Ideals Program Notion Very Good Employee Founders Google Good Work Workplace

Author:Joel Bakan

“Governments can can send inspectors to companies. Governments can put legal requirements in place to disclose information that consumers and workers and other interested people need. Non-governmental organizations don't have that legal power and to me, that's what imposes substantial limitiations on how far we can go with trying to keep corporations accountable though non-governmental measures.”

People Needs Trying Government Business Company Information Organization Workers Consumers Corporations Requirements Inspectors

Author:Joel Bakan

“Now, I don't mean to say that being wrong is the same thing as being creative. What we do know is, if you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original. If you're not prepared to be wrong. And by the time they get to be adults, most kids have lost that capacity. They have become frightened of being wrong. And we run our companies like this, by the way, we stigmatize mistakes. And we're now running national education systems where mistakes are the worst thing you can make.”

Ifs Knows Way Mean Running Kids Lost Business Mistake Company Creative Worst Adults Capacity Originals Prepared Come Up Frightened Worst Things Be Creative Education System Being Wrong

Author:Ken Robinson

“...one of the most inventive forms of creative capitalism involves someone we all know very well. A few years ago, I was sitting in a bar here in Davos with Bono. Late at night, after a few drinks, he was on fire, talking about how we could get a percentage of each purchase from civic-minded companies to help change the world. He kept calling people, waking them up, and handing me the phone to show me the interest.”

“Growth isn't central at all, because I'm trying to run this company as if it's going to be here a hundred years from now. And if you take where we are today and add 15% growth, like public companies need to have for their stock to stay up in value, I'd be a multi-trillion-dollar company in 40 years. Which is impossible, of course.”

Ifs Needs Trying Years Running Today Values Courses Growth Business Company Impossible Hundred Dollars Add

Author:Yvon Chouinard

“So all of these companies that are going for the big growth, if it continues for any length of time, will outlast their resources and outlast their customers and go belly-up. And that's why these huge companies have massive layoffs all the time.”

Ifs Bigs Growth Business Company Huge Resources Customers Length Massive Belly Layoff

Author:Yvon Chouinard

“But I'm really trying to run this company like it is going to be here a hundred years from now. That's what's important.”

Trying Years Important Running Business Company Hundred What's Important

Author:Yvon Chouinard

“We've teamed up with some Japanese companies to, basically by 2010, make all our clothing out of recycled and recyclable fibers. And we're going to accept ownership of our products from birth to birth. So if you buy a jacket from us, or a shirt ,or a pair of pants, when you're done with it, you can give it back to us and we'll make more shirts and pants out of it.”

Ifs Giving Done Business Company Accepting Products Birth Shirts Pairs Clothings Pants Ownership Jackets Fiber Recycled

Author:Yvon Chouinard

“What they don't realize is that I'm not in the business to make clothes. I'm not in the business to make more money for myself, for Christ's sake. This is the reason Patagonia exists - to put into action the recommendations I read about in books to avoid environmental collapse. That's the reason I'm in business - to try to clean up our own act, and try to influence other companies to do the right thing, and try to influence our customers to do the right thing. So we're not going to change.”

Trying Book Reason Action Christ Realizing Business Company Influence Clothes Clean Environmental Sake Customers Right Thing Collapse More Money Recommendations Patagonia

Author:Yvon Chouinard

“The start of the New Year is a perfect time to start a stop doing list and to make this the cornerstone of your New Year resolutions, be it for your company, your family or yourself. It also is a perfect time to clarify your three circles, mirroring at a personal level the three questions... 1) What are you deeply passionate about? 2) What are you are genetically encoded for - what activities do you feel just "made to do"? 3) What makes economic sense - what can you make a living at?”

Feels Years Made Three Perfect Levels Business Company Economic Activity Passionate Lists Circles Our Family Resolution New Year Cornerstones New Years Resolution Mirroring Feels Just

Author:James C. Collins

“If there's a big problem and you've got the right people with you, usually the answer emerges and you do what's the obvious thing to do. I don't think of myself as some great manager or great leader. I've been very lucky to be in the positions that I've been in. I meet a lot of people and I've grown a lot of companies, and I meet a lot of CEOs at big enterprises. I'm always so surprised at how much they seem to know. It doesn't always seem to be correlated to how well they actually do.”

“I'm amazed by the potential of more companies employing integrated philanthropic initiatives at earlier stages in their life cycle. What if this were done on an even more massive scale? Consider what would happen if a top-tier venture-capital firm required the companies in which it invested to place 1% of their equity into a foundation serving the communities in which they do business.”

Source: The Business of Changing the World: Twenty Great Leaders on Strategic Corporate Philanthropy

“We believe that a company's obligations extend far beyond its bottom line and its shareholders - to a wider constituency that includes employees, customers, suppliers, and the community.”

Believe Community Lines Business Company Bottom Customers Obligation Employee Bottom Line Shareholders Suppliers

Author:John A. Byrne

“You can't operate a company by fear, because the way to eliminate fear is to avoid criticism. And the way to avoid criticism is to do nothing.”

Way Business Company Criticism

Author:Steve Ross

“If joining IBM was commitment, not employment, and the company engaged in something more than business, it had a right to demand of its men unconditional loyalty, Watson believed.”

Ifs Men Belief Business Company Demand Commitment Loyalty Employment Engaged Unconditional Joining Watson Ibm

Author:Thomas Watson

“Preserve the core, and let the rest flux. In their wonderful bestseller Built to Last, authors James Collins and Jerry Porras make a convincing argument that long-lived companies are able to thrive 50 years or more by retaining a very small heart of unchanging values, and then stimulating progress in everything else. At times "everything" includes changing the business the company operates in, migrating, say, from mining to insurance. Outside the core of values, nothing should be exempt from flux. Nothing.”

Should Years Heart Long Able Lasts Values Business Company Progress Wonderful Built Argument Core Preserves Thrive Convincing Jerry Mining Flux Unchanging Retaining

Author:Kevin Kelly

“...there is no more strategic issue for a company, or any organization, than its ultimate purpose. For those who think business exists to make a profit, I suggest they think again. Business makes a profit to exist. Surely it must exist for some higher, nobler purpose than that.”

Thinking Purpose Business Existence Company Issues Higher Ultimate Organization Entrepreneur Profit Strategic Noble Causes

Author:Ray Anderson

“During the last five years, those four advantages-costs, products, people, goodwill-have been the salvation of Interface during a recession that saw our primary marketplace shrink by 38% from peak to trough-38%! As a heavily leveraged company with over $400 million in debt, we might not have made it without the sustainability initiative and, especially, the support of our customers. This revised definition of success-this new paradigm-has a name: "Doing well by doing good". It is a better way to bigger profits.”

“Maybe we should be directing our anger elsewhere - like toward Wall Street. Why is it we never think of Big Business when we think of welfare recipients? Companies take more of our tax dollars, and in much more questionable ways, than do those who are trying to heat their apartments with a kerosene stove.”

Thinking Way Should Trying Bigs Business Company Streets Wall Taxes Dollars Welfare Heat Elsewhere Apartment Big Business Questionable Stoves Tax Dollars Welfare Recipients

Author:Michael Moore

“A lot of companies have chosen to downsize, and maybe that was the right thing for them. We chose a different path. Our belief was that if we kept putting great products in front of customers, they would continue to open their wallets.”

Source: Motivating Thoughts of Steve Jobs

“To turn really interesting ideas and fledgling technologies into a company that can continue to innovate for years, it requires a lot of disciplines.”

Years Ideas Success Turns Interesting Business Company Technology Discipline Self Improvement Innovation Business Success Really Interesting Ipods Original Ideas Business Ideas Interesting Ideas Fledglings

Author:Steve Jobs

“It's hard to tell with these Internet startups if they're really interested in building companies or if they're just interested in the money. I can tell you, though: If they don't really want to build a company, they won't luck into it. That's because it's so hard that if you don't have a passion, you'll give up.”

Ifs Want Inspirational Giving I Can Hard Passion Money Business Company Building Internet Giving Up Luck

Author:Steve Jobs

“The system is that there is no system. That doesn't mean we don't have process. Apple is a very disciplined company, and we have great processes. But that's not what it's about. Process makes you more efficient.”

Mean Process Business Company Technology Apples Efficient Best Job Real Jobs

Author:Steve Jobs

“Every company's greatest assets are its customers, because without customers there is no company.”

Source: How to Win Customers and Keep Them for Life: Revised and Updated for the Digital Age

“Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.”

Inspirational Motivational Success Individual Sports Leadership Effort Business Responsibility Company Groups Team Society Civilization Succeed Commitment Working Together Executives Motivational Sports Teamwork Dedication Key To Success Road To Success Personal Responsibility Recipe For Success Team Building Footballer Volleyball Team Work Inspirational Team Best Team Sports Team Team Spirit Great Team Team Player Teamw Team Working Building A Team Cooperation Teamwork Inspirational Teamwork Cooperation And Teamwork Team Member Motivational Teamwork Basketball Teamwork Inspirational Team Building Winning Team Importance Of Teamwork Inspirational Football Coach Leadership Teamwork Individual Effort Team Goal Team Effort Team Work Inspirational Great Teamwork Team Motivational Team Motivation Teamwork And Love Team Building Inspiration Teamwork And Leadership Group Effort Team Collaboration Unity And Teamwork Team Work Motivational Inspiring Team Building Great Team Building Inspiring Teamwork Great Team Work Teamwork In Business Team Bonding Individual Work Combined Effort Individual Performance Group Work

Author:Vince Lombardi

“If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.”

People Ifs Inspirational Business Company Bigger Giants Dwarfs Recruitment

Author:David Ogilvy

“There are two kinds of companies, those that work to try to charge more and those that work to charge less. We will be the second.”

Trying Kind Two Business Company Second Chance Try Again

Author:Jeff Bezos

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