Inspirational Quotes from Entrepreneurs
"Unleash the potential of your employees Find ways to connect your employees broader aspirations, look for something bigger than the business. A mission that captures the imagination of your employees.”
Jeff Van Duzer
“The reason people come to work for GE, they want to be apart of something bigger than themselves, they want to work for a company that makes a difference, a company that is doing great things in the world.”
Jeff Immelt, General Electric, CEO
"In my life, other than my wife and kids, anything good that has happened to me it’s because someone gave me an opportunity, they gave me a shot. There are so many people in our organization that feel a calling to provide an opportunity to others — so we have become deeply involved in education and access. Access to jobs, training and internships."
Jay S. Fishman, Travelers CEO
The ultimate resource in economic development is people. It is people, not capital or raw materials that develop an economy.”
Peter Drucker, Landmarks of Tomorrow
"Every occupation has its own honor before God. Ordinary work is a divine vocation or calling. In our daily work no matter how important or mundane we serve God by serving the neighbor and we also participate in God's on-going providence for the human race.”
Martin Luther, Reformer
“The true measure of leadership is influence – nothing more, nothing less.”
John Maxwell
"Business enterprise is an organ of society. There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer."
Peter Drucker
“Anyone can steer a ship, but it takes a leader to chart the course.”
John Maxwell
"What the customer buys and considers value is never a product. It is always utility, that is, what a product or a service does for the customer.”
Peter Drucker
“Management and entrepreneurship are only two different dimensions of the same task. An entrepreneur who does not learn how to manage will not last long. A management that does not learn to innovate will not last long.”
Peter Drucker
"One does not “manage” people. The task is to lead people."
Peter Drucker
"To add growth, lead followers – to multiply, lead leaders."
John Maxwell
"Mission defines strategy, and strategy defines structure."
Peter Drucker
"A leader’s potential is determined by those closets to him."
John Maxwell
“Those who can create value through leadership, relationships and creativity will transform the industry, as well as strengthen relationships with their existing clients.”
Gary Boomer, CPA {Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat}
"I do not fear failure, what I fear is succeeding at the wrong thing.”
Unknown
“Never before in the history of the planet have so many people, on their own, had the ability to find so much information about so many things and about so many other people.”
Thomas L. Friedman
“Feed a person a fish and you have fed that person for a day. Teach a person to fish and you have fed that person for a lifetime. Help that person to grow a fishing business and you will have fed not only his family but also half the village.”
The World is Flat
“For us the leverage in supporting these “high-impact” entrepreneurs comes not only through the direct jobs but also through a multiplier effect: one high-impact entrepreneur creates hundreds of jobs, inspires thousands of future entrepreneurs, and the cycle continues.”
Linda Rottenberg, www.endeavor.org
“The most effective way to manage change successfully is to create it.”
Peter Drucker
"The enterprise can fulfill its human and social functions only if it prospers as a business."
Peter Drucker
"Efficiency is concerned with doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things."
Peter Drucker
"Young people find it hard to get involved in meaningful work even when they want to do something which matters. One reason is they are waiting for the corporate recruiters who come on campus to sit down and offer them a job which changes the world. Instead, consulting firms and investment banks show up. Don’t wait for the recruiter from HR to come on campus to interview you. Get together the money for a plane ticket yourself."
Jeremy Hockenstein, Harvard Graduate
"A business enterprise must continue beyond the lifetime of the individual or of the generation to be capable of producing its contributions to economy and to society."
Peter Drucker
“Business exists to supply goods and services to customers and economic surplus to society, rather than to supply jobs to workers and managers or even dividends to shareholders.”
Peter Drucker
“When societies begin to prosper, you get a virtuous cycle going” They begin to produce enough food for people to leave the land, the excess labor gets trained and educated, it begins working in services and industry; that leads to innovation and better education and universities, freer markets, economic growth and development, better infrastructure, fewer diseases, and slower population growth.”
Thomas L. Friedman
“People alone of all the resources can grow and develop.”
Peter Drucker
“Once people get a taste for whatever you want to call it – economic independence, a better lifestyle, and a better life for their children – they grab on to that and don’t want to give it up.”
Thomas L. Friedman
"The enterprise, by definition, must be capable of producing more or better than all the resources that comprise it."
Peter Drucker
“We have to be the best global citizens we can be.”
Thomas L. Friedman
“The dismantling of the Berlin Wall on 11/9 was brought about by the people who dared to imagine a different, more open world, one where every human being would be free to realize his or her full potential, and who then summoned the courage to act on that imagination.”
Thomas L. Friedman
"Inside an enterprise there are only costs; results exist only on the outside. The result of a business is a satisfied customer."
Peter Drucker
"Every enterprise is learning and teaching institution. Training and development must be built into it on all levels, training and development that never stop."
Peter Drucker
“Managers are agents of transformation, converting the workforce in developed countries from one of manual workers to one of highly educated knowledge workers.”
Peter Drucker
“Not to innovate is the single largest reason for the decline of existing organizations. Not to know how to manage is the single largest reason for the failure of new ventures.”
Peter Drucker
"There is one qualification the manager cannot acquire but must bring to the task. It is not genius; it is character."
Peter Drucker
“If you want to lead people, you have to let them come up close.”
John Maxwell
"If you are training leaders, because you need them, you are too late."
John Maxwell
“A picture of a life-giving mentor: one who walks beside another and says, "I'm going to help you finish your race well.”
Tim Elmore
