Quotes About Progress

Gould was promoted to lead

The first task in making a successful transition is to accelerate your learning.

I want to operate on a 90-day time frame, starting with 30 days to get on top of things," he told her. "Then I will bring you a detailed assessment and plan with goals and actions for the next 60 days." Michael updated her regularly on his progress. Pressed by her to make a call on a major systems purchase after three weeks, Michael held firm to his schedule. At the end of 30 days, he delivered a strong plan that pleased his new boss.

No matter how much preparation time you get, start planning what you hope to accomplish by specific milestones. Even a few hours of preentry planning can go a long way. Begin by thinking about your first day in the new job. What do you want to do by the end of that day? Then move to the first week. Then focus on the end of the first month, the second month, and finally the three-month mark. These plans will be sketchy, but the simple act of beginning to plan will help clear your head.

The personal development conversation. Once you're a few months into your new role, you can begin to discuss how you're doing and what your developmental priorities should be. Where are you doing well? In what areas do you need to improve or do things differently? Are there projects or special assignments you could undertake (without sacrificing focus)?

No matter where you land, the keys to effective delegation remain much the same: you build a team of competent people whom you trust, you establish goals and metrics to monitor their progress, you translate higher-level goals into specific responsibilities for your direct reports, and you reinforce them through process.

But if you dig yourself into a hole early on, you will face an uphill battle from that point forward.

the ability to delegate lies at the heart of leadership.3 Regardless of where you land in the organization, the keys to effective delegation remain pretty much the same: you build a team of competent people whom you trust, you establish goals and metrics through which you can monitor people's progress, you translate higher-level goals into specific responsibilities for your direct reports, and you reinforce them through some sort of management-by-objectives process.

Devote some time to defining your learning agenda as early as possible, and return to it periodically to refine and supplement it. Efficient learning means identifying the best available sources of insight and then figuring out how to extract maximum insight with the least possible outlay of time.

preparing yourself means letting go of the past and embracing the imperatives of the new situation to give yourself a running start.

growth covers up a lot of sins.

The way I describe this when talking with businesspeople is that the domain of technology is no longer in the IT department; the whole company is technology. I'm talking about all companies. If you're trying to make cars or medical devices or any kind of product at all, and you want to have new customers, technology is the fulcrum of progress in everything you're doing.

How successful you are is really a function of how well you deal with failure—and how much you learn from it.

Everyday is a day in which to excel

If I took my time, sampled every possibility, eventually I'd hit on the perfect combination and come into my own.

Contrary to popular belief, my experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren't so because of what they know but because of their insatiable need to know more.

Creativity thinks up new things. Innovation does new things.

Simply put, your job is to prepare yourself and your business for growth.

Once established, the level of "self" rarely changes unless a person makes a structured and long-term effort to change it.

quality differentials have a tendency to erode as an industry matures

Mandatory measurement and reporting of results is perhaps the single most important step in reforming the health care system.

Recovering from failure is often easier than building from success.

So long as you're facing in the right direction, every step you take is the right step.

Without a past you can't have a future.