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Quotes from Tom Peters

Formula for success: Underpromise and overachieve.
~ Tom Peters
The number one premise of business is that it need not be boring or dull. It ought to be fun. If it's not fun, you're wasting your life.
~ Tom Peters
In McKinsey's world, all of life is one of two things: strategy or organization.
~ Tom Peters
You can't live life without an eraser.
~ Tom Peters
Give a lot, expect a lot, and if you don't get it, prune.
~ Tom Peters
If a window of opportunity appears, don't pull down the shade.
~ Tom Peters
Winners must learn to relish change with the same enthusiasm and energy that we have resisted it in the past.
~ Tom Peters
Mistakes are life. Mistakes are not to be tolerated...they are to be encouraged. The bigger the better.
~ Tom Peters
Business book writing for me is when some set of ideas gets stuck in my mind, I write a book about it. I haven't got a theory and I haven't got a framework.
~ Tom Peters
Learning is a matter of intensity not elapsed time.
~ Tom Peters
When you choose a managerial path, you are choosing to devote your life to people. Period.
~ Tom Peters
Life is too short for non-WOW projects.
~ Tom Peters
I don't read many business books. I read good fiction. Business is about people, so my favorite business books are anything by Dickens.
~ Tom Peters
I think it's wonderful to save the world, but you need to be part of the world, too.
~ Tom Peters
'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.
~ Tom Peters
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.
~ Tom Peters
Execution Excellence! (Show up on time! Leave last!)
~ Tom Peters
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.
~ Tom Peters
South Africa has all the tools to compete in the new global village - an eager workforce, ready to take on any challenge.
~ Tom Peters
Musing on the phrase 'waste of time.' So much more complex than it appears. Many 'wastes of time' small talk, daydreaming are imperatives.
~ Tom Peters
Cost does not equal value... and low cost parts decrease brand equity for a very long time.
~ Tom Peters
The idea of intimately entwining with customers [to get ideas] is an idea whose time has come.
~ Tom Peters
Remember: You are the only human being in the world who can help this particular customer at this particular moment in time.
~ Tom Peters
We often hear that the digital age has resulted in a devaluing of time, space, and place. But I wonder if theseclaims are exaggerated.
~ Tom Peters