Thomas J. Peters (born November 7, 1942) is an American writer on business management practices, best known for In Search of Excellence (co-authored with Robert H. Waterman Jr).
I think economics is about passion. Economic progress, whether it is a two-person coffee shop or whether it is Netscape, is about people with brave ideas. Because it is brave to mortgage the house, when you've got two kids, to start a coffee shop.
Integrity may be about little things as much or more than big ones.
How do you humiliate and demean someone and then expect him or her to care about product quality.
Business is about people. It's about passion. It's about bold ideas, bold small ideas or bold large ideas.
Inspiring visions rarely (I'm tempted to say never) include numbers.
I find digital content much easier and more rewarding to interact with on screen than printed on paper.
Collections of books and other documents, either printed or electronic, are a form of congregation.
Some people have argued that listening to a work of literature does not really promote literacy in the same way that reading does. Having tried this for several months, however, I can report from the trenches that, for me, immersive listening is as intellectually challenging, stimulating, and rewarding as immersive reading.
Appreciation, applause, approval, respect - we all love it!
The thing that keeps a business ahead of the competition is excellence in execution.
With most competitors moving ever faster, the race will go to those who listen (and respond) most intently.
I don't want an epitaph on my gravestone that says, 'He would have pursued some big dreams in his life, but other people wouldn't let him.
You can't think your way out of a box; you've got to act.
Design is so critical it should be on the agenda of every meeting in every single department.
An era similar to the one in which the black rotary phone dominated its product category may not recur anytime soon.
How do you achieve excellence?. . . Stop doing non-excellent stuff!
If not excellence, what? If not excellence now, when?
Confidence means non-paralysis, a willingness to act, and act decisively, to start new things and cut failing ventures off.
Who, precisely, are your Dreamers? Are their Dreams in Technicolor? Do you allow their most Outrageous Dreams to be seen in public?
Life is too short for non-WOW projects.