Harold Geneen
I think it is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is realityCollection: Leadership
If your desk isn't cluttered, you probably aren't doing your job.Collection: Jobs
The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success are concentration, discrimination, organization, innovation and communication.Collection: Success
A true leader has to have a genuine open-door policy so that his people are not afraid to approach him for any reason.Collection: Leadership
It is much more difficult to measure non-performance than performance. Performance stands out like a ton of diamonds. Non-performance can almost always be explained awayCollection: Business
The best way to sell yourself to others is first to sell the others to yourself. Check yourself against this list of obstacles to a pleasing personality: interrupting others; sarcasm; vanity; being a poor listener; insincere flattery; finding fault; challenging others without good cause; giving unsolicited advice; complaining; attitude of superiority; envy of others' success; poor posture and dress.Collection: Attitude
What you manage in business is peopleCollection: Business
Do you want my one-word secret of happiness? It's growth - - mental, financial you name it.Collection: Happiness
Better a good decision quickly than the best decision too late.Collection: Decision
Facts from paper are not the same as facts from people. The reliability of the people giving you the facts is as important as the facts themselves.Collection: People
Uncertainty will always be part of the taking charge process.Collection: Business
The highest art of professional management requires the literal ability to 'smell' a 'real fact' from all others.Collection: Art
Management manages by making decisions and by seeing that those decisions are implemented.Collection: Time
The professional's grasp of the numbers is a measure of the control he has over the events that the figures represent.Collection: Numbers
We must not be hampered by yesterday's myths in concentrating on today's needs.Collection: Yesterday
Ninety-nine percent of all surprises in business are negative.Collection: Ninety Nine
It's better to take over and build upon an existing business than to start a new one.Collection: Business
In a good meeting there is a momentum that comes from the spontaneous exchange of fresh ideas and produces extraordinary results. That momentum depends on the freedom permitted the participants.Collection: Ideas
You can know a person by the kind of desk he keeps. If the president of a company has a clean desk then it must be the executive vice president who is doing all the work.Collection: President
You can't run a business or anything else on a theory.Collection: Running
I don't believe in just ordering people to do things. You have to sort of grab an oar and row with them. My philosophy is to stay as close as possible to what's happening. If I can't solve something, how the hell can I expect my managers to.Collection: Philosophy
Performance stands out like a ton of diamonds. Nonperformance can always be explained away.Collection: Standing Out
Business is many things, the least of which is the balance sheet. It is a fluid, ever changing, living thing, sometimes building to great peaks, sometimes falling to crumbled lumps.Collection: Business
Management must have a purpose, a dedication and that dedication must have an emotional commitment. It must be built in as a vital part of the personality of anyone who truly is a manager.Collection: Commitment
When I come upon a man who has a gleaming, empty, clear desktop, I am dealing with a fellow who is so far removed from the realities of his business that someone else is running it for him.Collection: Running
If you keep working you'll last longer. I'd hate to spend the rest of my life trying to outwit an 18-inch fish.Collection: Hate
In the business world, everyone is always working at legitimate cross purposes, governed by self interest.Collection: Self