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The thing I have learned at IBM is that culture is everything.

Lou Gerstner

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Lou Gerstner
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 1
Business Executive
Businessperson
Mineola
New York
Excellence
Learned
Culture
Everything
Thing

More quotes by Lou Gerstner

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Customer complaints are the schoolbooks from which we learn.
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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.
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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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If the practices and processes inside a company don't drive the execution of values, then people don't get it. The question is, do you create a culture of behavior and action that really demonstrates those values and a reward system for those who adhere to them?
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What we believe is going to be very important is the delivery of traditional software and services and hardware over the Net. That's a form of electronic marketplace.
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I'm leery of legislative solutions to what is morality.
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Everything starts with the customer.
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Never confuse activity with results.
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For the first month, I listened, and I tried very hard not to draw conclusions
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Watch the turtle. He only moves forward by sticking his neck out.
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Computers are magnificent tools for the realization of our dreams, but no machine can replace the human spark of spirit, compassion, love, and understanding.
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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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I have always believed you cannot run a successful enterprise from behind a desk.
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My parents worked enormously hard to put four children through college. We didn't have a lot of money.
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People don't do what you expect but what you inspect.
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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.
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We built this company from the customer back, not from the company out.
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You can’t mandate [cultural change], can’t engineer it. What you can do is create the conditions for transformation. You can provide incentives. You can define the marketplace realities and goals. But then you have to trust. In fact, in the end, management doesn’t change culture. Management invites the workforce itself to change the culture.
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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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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.
Lou Gerstner