Quotes About Opportunity

Entrepreneurs see change as the norm and as healthy. Usually, they do not bring about the change themselves. But – and this defines entrepreneur and entrepreneurship – the entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.

What makes demographics such a rewarding opportunity for the entrepreneur is precisely its neglect by decision makers, whether businessmen, public-service staffs, or governmental policymakers. They still cling to the assumption that demographics do not change – or do not change fast. Indeed, they reject even the plainest evidence of demographic changes.

The earlier changes are discerned, the earlier the opportunities they create can be converted into innovations.

Thus the unexpected success is not just an opportunity for innovation; it demands innovation. It forces us to ask, What basic changes are now appropriate for this organization in the way it defines its business? Its technology? Its markets? If these questions are faced up to, then the unexpected success is likely to open up the most rewarding and least risky of all innovative opportunities.

Innovation is the specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they exploit change as an opportunity for a different business or a different service.

But the most important work of the executive is to identify the changes that have already happened. The important challenge in society, economics, politics, is to exploit the changes that have already occurred and to use them as opportunities. The important thing is to identify the "future that has already happened"—and to develop a methodology for perceiving and analyzing these changes. A

Entrepreneurs innovate. Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship.

Far more often, the unexpected success is simply not seen at all. Nobody pays any attention to it. Hence, nobody exploits it, with the inevitable result that the competitor runs with it and reaps the rewards.

To exploit the opportunity for innovation offered by unexpected success requires analysis. Unexpected success is a symptom. But a symptom of what? The underlying phenomenon may be nothing more than a limitation on our own vision, knowledge, and understanding.

Managements must look at every unexpected success with the questions: (1) What would it mean to us if we exploited it? (2) Where could it lead us? (3) What would we have to do to convert it into an opportunity? And (4) How do we go about it? This means, first, that managements need to set aside specific time in which to discuss unexpected successes; and second, that someone should always be designated to analyse an unexpected success and to think through how it could be exploited.

We may not understand the reason for it; indeed, we often cannot figure it out. Still, an incongruity is a symptom of an opportunity to innovate.

Actually, IBM went through a severe identity crisis. It almost missed the computer opportunity. It became capable of growth only through a palace coup which overthrew Thomas J. Watson, Sr., the company's founder, its chief executive, and for long years the prophet of "data processing.

A company that is not able to attract, motivate, and hold men of talent and competence will not survive. Increasingly, this will mean attracting, motivating, and holding the knowledge worker. Unlike the manual worker of yesterday, the knowledge worker does not, however, look just for a job. He looks for a career. He looks for an opportunity.

Success always makes obsolete the very behavior that achieved it. It always creates new realities. It always creates, above all, its own and different problems. Only the fairy tale ends, "They lived happily ever after.

Managements are paid for their judgment, but they are not being paid to be infallible. In fact, they are being paid to realize and admit that they have been wrong – especially when their admission opens up an opportunity. But this is by no means common.

The unexpected success is an opportunity, but it makes demands. It demands to be taken seriously. It demands to be staffed with the ablest people available, rather than with whoever we can spare. It demands seriousness and support on the part of management equal to the size of the opportunity. And the opportunity is considerable.

Still, entrepreneurial strategy remains the decision-making area of entrepreneurship and therefore the risk-taking one. It is by no means hunch or gamble. But it also is not precisely science. Rather, it is judgement.

problem solving, however necessary, does not produce results. It prevents damage. Exploiting opportunities produces results.

Exploiting opportunities produces results.

We need to encourage habits of flexibility, of continuous learning, and of acceptance of change as normal and as opportunity - for institutions as well as for individuals.

Some people have to live while others get to sit this living thing out.

If one Egyptian tailor hadn't cheated on the threads of Joseph's mantle, Potiphar's wife would never have been able to tear it, present it as evidence to Potiphar that Joseph attacked her, gotten him thrown in prison, and let him be in a position to interpret Pharaoh's dream, win his confidence, advise him to store seven years of grain, and save his family, the seventy original Jews from whom Jesus came. We owe our salvation to a cheap Egyptian tailor.

bad fortune is really just as good for you as good fortune is, in fact, it is better, because, he says, bad fortune teaches, while good fortune deceives. When

Time matters most when decisions are irreversible.