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For the first month, I listened, and I tried very hard not to draw conclusions

Lou Gerstner

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Lou Gerstner
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 1
Business Executive
Businessperson
Mineola
New York
Listening
Months
Conclusions
Firsts
Listened
First
Month
Hard
Conclusion
Draw
Draws
Tried

More quotes by Lou Gerstner

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A lot of people saved IBM. Yes, I was the leader of that team but I could never have done it without a group of IBMers helping me.
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In the end an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.
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Our military should be trained and structured around missions, not the elements of air, water, and land.
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Visit USA.gov and you'll find thousands of directorates, agencies, boards, offices, and services replete with overlapping responsibilities, ancient priorities, and divided accountability.
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The world is full of CEOs that think that just because they write a memo or they write a letter inside an annual report or they give a little video speech that gets sent around the company, they think that's what's really going to affect employees.
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I'm leery of legislative solutions to what is morality.
Lou Gerstner
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You can never be comfortable with your success, you've got to be paranoid you're going to lose it.
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I look for people who work to solve problems and help colleagues, I sack politicians.
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People don't do what you expect but what you inspect.
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Everything starts with the customer.
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We built this company from the customer back, not from the company out.
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If life was so easy that you could just go buy success, there would be a lot more successful companies in the world. Successful enterprises are built from the ground up.
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I have always believed you cannot run a successful enterprise from behind a desk.
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The fundamental issue is: In the world of the Internet, is there a place for a packager of services? Does the customer want to go surf the Net and go to every one of 50,000 Web sites? Or will people pay a reasonable amount for somebody to go out and preselect and package what they want? My guess is they will both coexist.
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The last thing IBM needs right now is a vision.
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Watch the turtle. He only moves forward by sticking his neck out.
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Every now and then, a technology comes along that is so profound, so powerful, so universal, that its impact will change everything. It will transform every institution in the world. It will create winners and losers, will change the way we do business, the way we teach our children, communicate and interact as individuals.
Lou Gerstner
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IBM needed - an enormous sense of urgency.
Lou Gerstner
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We do not need Departments of Commerce, Labor, and Education we need a single Department of Skills that will promote an integrated approach to global competitiveness.
Lou Gerstner
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Never confuse activity with results.
Lou Gerstner