Customer Success Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Customer Success. Here they are! All 100 of them:

We must learn what customers really want, not what they say they want or what we think they should want.
Eric Ries (The Lean Startup: The Million Copy Bestseller Driving Entrepreneurs to Success)
One way to improve your business is to increase its capabilities. The more capable your business is of providing value to it's customers, the more success your business will experience.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
A business becomes successful when it becomes mutually beneficial for you and your customers.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
If you want to keep your customers happy, start by keeping your employees happy.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect the shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes. In the version of grief we imagine, the model will be "healing." A certain forward movement will prevail. The worst days will be the earliest days. We imagine that the moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this hypothetical healing will take place. When we anticipate the funeral we wonder about failing to "get through it," rise to the occasion, exhibit the "strength" that invariably gets mentioned as the correct response to death. We anticipate needing to steel ourselves the for the moment: will I be able to greet people, will I be able to leave the scene, will I be able even to get dressed that day? We have no way of knowing that this will not be the issue. We have no way of knowing that the funeral itself will be anodyne, a kind of narcotic regression in which we are wrapped in the care of others and the gravity and meaning of the occasion. Nor can we know ahead of the fact (and here lies the heart of the difference between grief was we imagine it and grief as it is) the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself.
Joan Didion (The Year of Magical Thinking)
If you want business growth, you are going to offer the right product to the right customer
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
In the end, all we have to do is to be in the shoes of our audience and our product will hardly fail.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
The key to fighting and surviving the competition lies in understanding your customers’ needs.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
We have to start listening to what our ideal customers have to say about our product with an open mind.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
It feels amazing to know that there is an increased demand for your product, but customer experience and satisfaction are consequential for long-lasting business growth.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
Communication is how entrepreneurs tell their story, which, in turn, should inspire employees to work smart and encourage customers to action.
Curtis L. Jenkins (Vision to Reality: Stop Working, Start Living)
An advertising strategy is based on proper research which guides you in this entire process of customer acquisition with the help of ads.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
A strong business idea with a profitable future will no doubt attract better financing rather than the other options.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
It’s okay to be wrong but it’s not okay to not accept it. When we fail to acknowledge and admit that we were wrong, we hinder our mind from learning something new.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
The mantra here is the more value you are going to create, the more profitable customer relationships you are going to build this the more successful your business is going to be.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
You need a good customer service and client success strategy because it helps your business grow.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
You should not just try to understand your customers, but also the market and make sure that the targeted market has the customers that you need.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
Post-purchase dissonance is when the customers regret the product that they have just bought.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
Customers are becoming more and more concerned about the environment. They don’t want to associate themselves with any product or brand which is not working hard to protect the environment.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
We always talk about competition and how easily others enter your industry and become your competitors, but the biggest threat comes from how easily your customers can switch to another brand’s products.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
Her failure was a useful preliminary to success.
Edith Wharton (The Custom of the Country)
Speculation is an effort, probably unsuccessful, to turn a little money into a lot. Investment is an effort, which should be successful, to prevent a lot of money from becoming a little.
Fred Schwed Jr. (Where Are the Customers' Yachts? or A Good Hard Look at Wall Street)
Success is not delivering a feature; success is learning how to solve the customer’s problem.
Eric Ries (The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses)
The golden rule here is to stop assuming what your customers are going to like and what they won’t. Instead, start putting yourself in their shoes to familiarize yourself with their needs and wants. That way you will never go wrong.
Pooja Agnihotri (17 Reasons Why Businesses Fail :Unscrew Yourself From Business Failure)
You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible.
Paul Graham
When you’re busy, avoid taking the quickest action. Instead make the extra effort to truly serve the customer.
Marilyn Suttle
Customers don’t care how much time something takes to build. They care only if it serves their needs.
Eric Ries (The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses)
To be successful in business, you need to understand what you’re selling and you need to understand the people who are buying. And the more holistic your understanding, the more success the business will experience.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
The company that writes your paycheck every two weeks is not your employer; they are your customer. Adopt this mind-set and everything changes. You are free from the daily grind—free to grow your business and serve your customers, your fellow man.
Daniel Lapin (Business Secrets from the Bible: Spiritual Success Strategies for Financial Abundance)
If we do not know who the customer is, we do not know what quality is.
Eric Ries (The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses)
Businesses are at all times and in different ways accountable to employees, suppliers, customers and community.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
Key Performance Indicators should be customized to each business.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
We’re all somebody’s prospect; we’re all somebody’s customer.
Chris Murray (Selling with EASE: The Four Step Sales Cycle Found in Every Successful Business Transaction)
Thinking there had to be a better way was a brilliant stroke of serendipity!
Lorii Myers
The ability to learn faster from customers is the essential competitive advantage that startups must possess.
Eric Ries (The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses)
Building positive customer experiences will help create passionate customers who will spread your message on their behalf - almost like an evangelist.
Simon Zingerman (We All Need Heroes: Stories of the Brave and Foolish)
Anything those customers experience from their interaction with a company should be considered part of that company’s product.
Eric Ries (The Lean Startup: The Million Copy Bestseller Driving Entrepreneurs to Success)
A brand is a business enabler. A good brand magnetizes customers, incentivizes sales and encourages loyalty.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
If you're a customer and you love what you're buying from a business, then you should want that business to be profitable so that you can keep on buying that stuff from them.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
The point is not to find the average customer but to find early adopters: the customers who feel the need for the product most acutely. Those customers tend to be more forgiving of mistakes and are especially eager to give feedback.
Eric Ries (The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses)
Sham Harga had run a successful eatery for many years by always smiling, never extending credit, and realizing that most of his customers wanted meals properly balanced between the four food groups: sugar, starch, grease, and burnt crunchy bits.
Terry Pratchett (Men at Arms (Discworld, #15; City Watch, #2))
Efficiency is a major key to business success. It’s good when a business can do more with less. Not out of scarcity but out of efficiency. When a business does more with less, the result is more revenues produced from less investment… More revenues produced with less expenses… more customers attracted with less marketing activity…. More savings with less trade-off… Businesses that do more with less are rewarded with greater profits and greater capital.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (The Wealth Reference Guide: An American Classic)
The more successful you and your organization become, the more humble and devoted to your customers you need to be.
Robin S. Sharma (The Greatness Guide: Powerful Secrets for Getting to World Class)
Explain the value and justify the cost - People don’t mind paying; they just don’t like to overpay.
Chris Murray (Selling with EASE: The Four Step Sales Cycle Found in Every Successful Business Transaction)
The ability to sell—to communicate to another human being, be it a customer, employee, boss, spouse, or child—is the base skill of personal success.
Robert T. Kiyosaki (Rich Dad, Poor Dad)
If your customers are your building blocks, it becomes crucial for you to understand their needs and keep them satisfied all the time.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
When we master customer behavior and are able to offer them exactly what they want, we can achieve the biggest business opportunities.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
A market research project starts when you have the answers to the following questions: 1. Why are you researching? 2. What are you going to do with the results?
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
Having an objective for any project is highly important as we are living in a world full of data—some useful but mostly useless.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
For identifying the objective of your market research project, it is highly advisable that you should zero in on the exact information you want to collect and from who.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
If you are going to use the results of market research to make a big business decision, then it’s a good idea to do quantitative research rather than qualitative.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
The more numbers you know through market research, the more you will be able to cut down your business risk.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
The biggest advice I can give for setting up your market research objectives is to be very clear and concise.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
Two things happen when your objectives are too broad—you don’t achieve the right results and you lose a lot of your resources. You want to avoid both of those.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
If your objectives are too broad, they can dilute your project.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
One market research project should have only one objective. More than one objective can affect the effectiveness of your research.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
Never guess anything. You will make bad business decisions if you do that. If you don’t have data on something, start a research project on that topic.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
Discovering a cure for a disease is one thing, but making that cure available to everyone so it can actually be used to eradicate the problem is another thing.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
Focus groups for business projects are kind of the same. In this, you are going to collect data from a group of your customers or potential customers rather than your friends.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
Defining a good project is dependent on how well you can define your needs. The better you specify your requirements, the better the results of a project are going to be.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
Interviews are a qualitative form of collecting data. The reason it generates good responses is because it’s way more personal than other forms of data gathering techniques.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
If the data reveals that your customers are unhappy with your product, then not making a decision to improve your product is a waste of your resources and time spent on learning this.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
Your market research objectives need to fit into your marketing strategy. If your objectives are not supporting your marketing strategy, then it’s going to be a waste of your resources.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
Always remember that you’re in this business because of your customers. If they are not there, you will stop existing as well. So, start learning more about them. Don’t remain strangers.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
In current times, we have access to so much data. Having said that, data analysis can uncover so many hidden patterns about customer behavior and how they interact with various products.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
Oprah Winfrey, an undeniably successful guide to millions, once explained the three things every human being wants most are to be seen, heard, and understood. This is the essence of empathy.
Donald Miller (Summary of Building a StoryBrand: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen by Donald Miller)
People buy from businesses for many reasons. Among those reasons include: favorable price, favorable accessibility, demonstrated shared values, label identification, and more. The more reasons you can give people to buy from your business, the better sales numbers your business will experience.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
A market research plan should include all the essential information about your current research project. In addition, remember to keep your plan short and include only the most important information there.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
To save ourselves from getting lost in this sea of data and ending up directionless, it becomes vital for every business owner to not just set up their market research objectives but also to stick to those.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
Many research organizations are regularly studying the market and publishing their results in the form of various reports and case studies. You can study these reports to get an understanding of your issue.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
The True measure of a person’s success is to be a person of value.’ I knew people of value, people who kept their promises, people who were kind, people who were loyal.
Marjorie Hart (Summer at Tiffany)
Get up in the morning on a mission to save prospective clients from the shabby, ill-fitting, overpriced and worthless alternatives that those charlatans - who are your competition - are trying to get away with flogging them.
Chris Murray (Selling with EASE: The Four Step Sales Cycle Found in Every Successful Business Transaction)
If the research is done for brand awareness and the results don't show any rosy picture, then maybe you want to share those results with your marketing head who can include more brand awareness strategies in her marketing plan.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
You can turn any business into a successful one, but only if you can figure out what customers really need, what current brands are offering to fill that need, and how big the gap between customer needs and the existing product is.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
The code-of-ethics playlist: o Treat your colleagues, family, and friends with respect, dignity, fairness, and courtesy. o Pride yourself in the diversity of your experience and know that you have a lot to offer. o Commit to creating and supporting a world that is free of discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. o Have balance in your life and help others to do the same. o Invest in yourself, achieve ongoing enhancement of your skills, and continually upgrade your abilities. o Be approachable, listen carefully, and look people directly in the eyes when speaking. o Be involved, know what is expected from you, and let others know what is expected from them. o Recognize and acknowledge achievement. o Celebrate, relive, and communicate your successes on an ongoing basis.
Lorii Myers (Targeting Success, Develop the Right Business Attitude to be Successful in the Workplace (3 Off the Tee, #1))
You have to spend a lot of time with your customers and competitors to know what’s going on in their lives. You don’t want to be the last one to know that your customers’ needs have changed and now they want to break up with your brand.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
Things nature is good at include - organizing matter in a way that is multi functional, mass customization, network adaptation to circumstance, responsive evolution, growth as a mechanism for construction, decentralization, data management and asset management. Regardless of what kind of business we are talking about, there's something vital to learn from nature.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (Principles of a Permaculture Economy)
The reason is that good management itself was the root cause. Managers played the game the way it was supposed to be played. The very decision-making and resource-allocation processes that are key to the success of established companies are the very processes that reject disruptive technologies: listening carefully to customers; tracking competitors’ actions carefully; and investing resources to design and build higher-performance, higher-quality products that will yield greater profit. These are the reasons why great firms stumbled or failed when confronted with disruptive technological change.
Clayton M. Christensen (The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail (Management of Innovation and Change))
Profit is good. Profit compells people to be: (a) efficient - to do more with less, to consume fewer resources, to reduce and reuse waste. (b) productive - to allow for bigger profit margins. (c) Valuable - income, and therefore profit is only possible when we add value to our customers lives. When the value of our product or service is worth more to them than what it cost us to provide it, we profit. And there’s no scarcity of possible profits. Every business should be profiting. When every business is profiting, that’s a lot of increased value going around.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
Even in engineering-driven Silicon Valley, the buzzwords of the moment call for building a “lean startup” that can “adapt” and “evolve” to an ever-changing environment. Would-be entrepreneurs are told that nothing can be known in advance: we’re supposed to listen to what customers say they want, make nothing more than a “minimum viable product,” and iterate our way to success. But leanness is a methodology, not a goal. Making small changes to things that already exist might lead you to a local maximum, but it won’t help you find the global maximum. You could build the best version of an app that lets people order toilet paper from their iPhone. But iteration without a bold plan won’t take you from 0 to 1. A company is the strangest place of all for an indefinite optimist: why should you expect your own business to succeed without a plan to make it happen? Darwinism may be a fine theory in other contexts, but in startups, intelligent design works best.
Peter Thiel (Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future)
As it’s not feasible to research everyone in your target audience, you focus on a group of people that can represent most of the others in your market. For this, you wisely identify and obtain a sample and make sure that no group from your target market is left unrepresented.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
The chief duty of every new age is to upraise new men to determine its liberties, to lead it towards material success- to rend the rusty padlocks and chains of dead custom that always prevent healthy expansion. Theories and ideas that may have meant life and hope and freedom for our ancestors may now mean destruction, slavery, and dishonor to us!
Anton Szandor LaVey (The Satanic Bible)
Transitioning a company from present state to future state is not just about the company at large, but also about every single employee and customer and partner also transitioning from present state to future state. We have to consider the macro and the micro if the transition is going to be successful.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
The problem with success, even a little success, is that it changes you. You are no longer walking along the same precipice that drove you to do great work in the first place. Now you have something to defend: a reputation, money in the bank, a brand, real customer expectations. Success can take the edge away.
Lawrence Levy (To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History)
Sampling is directly dependent on your goal. If your goal is to increase your product quality, then you want to research those customers who have been using your products for quite some time. If you want to improve your first impression as a brand, then you can focus on those customers who are new to your brand.
Pooja Agnihotri (Market Research Like a Pro)
A business is in alignment if it’s employees feel a sense of fulfillment from working for the business and its customers feel a sense of fulfillment from buying from the business. In this case, fulfillment is in both the exhale and the inhale of the businesses activity. And this cycle of fulfillment will lead to sales and profits.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (The Wealth Reference Guide: An American Classic)
golden rules for career success 1 Specialize in a very small niche; develop a core skill 2 Choose a niche that you enjoy, where you can excel and stand a chance of becoming an acknowledged leader 3 Realize that knowledge is power 4 Identify your market and your core customers and serve them best 5 Identify where 20 percent of effort gives 80 percent of returns 6 Learn from the best 7 Become self-employed early in your career 8 Employ as many net value creators as possible 9 Use outside contractors for everything but your core skill 10 Exploit capital leverage
Richard Koch (The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less)
In private life do we not see hypocrisy, servility, selfishness, folly, and impudence succeed, while modesty shrinks from the encounter, and merit is trodden under foot? How often is 'the rose plucked from the forehead of a virtuous love to plant a blister there!' What chance is there of the success of real passion? What certainty of its continuance? Seeing all this as I do, and unravelling the web of human life into its various threads of meanness, spite, cowardice, want of feeling, and want of understanding, of indifference towards others, and ignorance of ourselves, – seeing custom prevail over all excellence, itself giving way to infamy – mistaken as I have been in my public and private hopes, calculating others from myself, and calculating wrong; always disappointed where I placed most reliance; the dupe of friendship, and the fool of love; – have I not reason to hate and to despise myself? Indeed I do; and chiefly for not having hated and despised the world enough.
William Hazlitt (On The Pleasure of Hating)
Too often, however, greed gets confused with positioning thinking. Charging high prices is not the way to get rich. Being the first to (1) establish the high-price position (2) with a valid product story (3) in a category where consumers are receptive to a high-priced brand is the secret of success. Otherwise, your high price just drives prospective customers away.
Al Ries (Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind)
I think that it’s extraordinarily important that we in computer science keep fun in computing. When it started out it was an awful lot of fun. Of course the paying customers got shafted every now and then and after a while we began to take their complaints seriously. We began to feel as if we really were responsible for the successful error-free perfect use of these machines. I don’t think we are. I think we’re responsible for stretching them setting them off in new directions and keeping fun in the house. I hope the field of computer science never loses its sense of fun. Above all I hope we don’t become missionaries. Don’t feel as if you’re Bible sales-men. The world has too many of those already. What you know about computing other people will learn. Don’t feel as if the key to successful computing is only in your hands. What’s in your hands I think and hope is intelligence: the ability to see the machine as more than when you were first led up to it that you can make it more.
Alan J. Perlis
Leadership requires kindness. If the people in positions of power in the company are cruel and mean to the other employees, it puts the whole company into a fear vibration. And that repels customers. Leaders should be stern, but kind; bold, but gracious. At Mayflower-Plymouth, we're here to help your business figure this out, and to provide holistic solutions. At Mayflower-Plymouth, we're here to help your business figure this out, and to provide holistic solutions.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
How your business makes your customers feel has a direct correlation to how much money they are willing to spend with your business and the promptness with which they spend money with your business. You should make your customers feel welcome, make them feel appreciated, make them feel respected. And show customers that your business is valuable by ensuring that you and every employee treats the business with care and respect.
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr. (The Wealth Reference Guide: An American Classic)
When we're talking about implementing change in business, it's good have a holistic view and to consider all of the dynamics, including: What is the scope of the change? Who is being impacted (customers, employees, others)? How are people being impacted, and in what way? Are there different perspectives regarding the experience of the change? What exactly is being changed (systems, processes, jobs)? What is the expected timeline for the change?
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
When the ancient Romans would conquer a new place or a new people, they would leave the language and the customs in tact – they would even let the conquered people rule themselves in most cases, appointing a governor to maintain a foothold in the region.” Wilson leaned against the whiteboard as he spoke, his posture relaxed, his hands clasped loosely.“This was part of what made Rome so successful. They didn't try to make everyone Romans in the process of conquering them. When I went to Africa with the Peace Corp, a woman who worked with the Corp said something to me that I have often thought about since. She told me 'Africa is not going to adapt to you. You are going to have to adapt to Africa.' That is true of wherever you go, whether it's school or whether it's in the broader world.
Amy Harmon (A Different Blue)
The philosophical assumptions, underlying values, social relations, customs, and overall outlooks on life differ significantly among civilizations. The revitalization of religion throughout much of the world is reinforcing these cultural differences. Cultures can change, and the nature of their impact on politics and economics can vary from one period to another. Yet the major differences in political and economic development among civilizations are clearly rooted in their different cultures. East Asian economic success has its source in East Asian culture, as do the difficulties East Asian societies have had in achieving stable democratic political systems. Islamic culture explains in large part the failure of democracy to emerge in much of the Muslim world.
Samuel P. Huntington (The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order)
Ask yourself . . . What are my goals when I converse with people? What kinds of things do I usually discuss? Are there other topics that would be more important given what’s actually going on? How often do I find myself—just to be polite—saying things I don’t mean? How many meetings have I sat in where I knew the real issues were not being discussed? And what about the conversations in my marriage? What issues are we avoiding? If I were guaranteed honest responses to any three questions, whom would I question and what would I ask? What has been the economical, emotional, and intellectual cost to the company of not identifying and tackling the real issues? What has been the cost to my marriage? What has been the cost to me? When was the last time I said what I really thought and felt? What are the leaders in my organization pretending not to know? What are members of my family pretending not to know? What am I pretending not to know? How certain am I that my team members are deeply committed to the same vision? How certain am I that my life partner is deeply committed to the vision I hold for our future? If nothing changes regarding the outcomes of the conversations within my organization, what are the implications for my own success and career? for my department? for key customers? for the organization’s future? What about my marriage? If nothing changes, what are the implications for us as a couple? for me? What is the conversation I’ve been unable to have with senior executives, with my colleagues, with my direct reports, with my customers, with my life partner, and most important, with myself, with my own aspirations, that, if I were able to have, might make the difference, might change everything? Are
Susan Scott (Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time)
Jobs and Clow agreed that Apple was one of the great brands of the world, probably in the top five based on emotional appeal, but they needed to remind folks what was distinctive about it. So they wanted a brand image campaign, not a set of advertisements featuring products. It was designed to celebrate not what the computers could do, but what creative people could do with the computers. " This wasn't about processor speed or memory," Jobs recalled. " It was about creativity." It was directed not only at potential customers, but also at Apple's own employees: " We at Apple had forgotten who we were. One way to remember who you are is to remember who your heroes are. That was the genesis of that campaign.
Walter Isaacson (Steve Jobs)
There is one aspect of the change in moral values brought about by the advance of collectivism which at the present time provides special food for thought. It is that the virtues which are held less and less in esteem and which consequently become rarer and precisely those on which the British people justly prided themselves and in which they were generally agreed to excel. The virtues possessed by Anglo-Saxons in a higher degree than most other people, excepting only a few of the smaller nations, like the Swiss and the Dutch, were independence and self-reliance, individual initiative and local responsbility, the successful reliance on voluntary activity, noninterference with one's neighbor and tolerance of the different and queer, respect for custom and tradition, and a healthy suspicion of power and authority.
Friedrich A. Hayek
It has often given my pleasure to observe, that independent America was not composed of detached and distant territories, but that one connected fertile, wide-spreading country was the portion of our western sons of liberty. Providence has in a particular manner blessed it with a variety of soils and productions, and watered it with innumerable streams, for the delight and accommodation of its inhabitants. A succession of navigable waters form a kind of chain round its borders, as if to bind them together; while the most noble rivers in the world, running at convenient distances, present them with highways for the easy communication of friendly aids, and the mutual transportation of their various ties. With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice, that Providence has been pleased to give us this one connected country to one united people -a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by they their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.
John Jay (The Federalist Papers)
The advantages of a hereditary Monarchy are self-evident. Without some such method of prescriptive, immediate and automatic succession, an interregnum intervenes, rival claimants arise, continuity is interrupted and the magic lost. Even when Parliament had secured control of taxation and therefore of government; even when the menace of dynastic conflicts had receded in to the coloured past; even when kingship had ceased to be transcendental and had become one of many alternative institutional forms; the principle of hereditary Monarchy continued to furnish the State with certain specific and inimitable advantages. Apart from the imponderable, but deeply important, sentiments and affections which congregate around an ancient and legitimate Royal Family, a hereditary Monarch acquires sovereignty by processes which are wholly different from those by which a dictator seizes, or a President is granted, the headship of the State. The King personifies both the past history and the present identity of the Nation as a whole. Consecrated as he is to the service of his peoples, he possesses a religious sanction and is regarded as someone set apart from ordinary mortals. In an epoch of change, he remains the symbol of continuity; in a phase of disintegration, the element of cohesion; in times of mutability, the emblem of permanence. Governments come and go, politicians rise and fall: the Crown is always there. A legitimate Monarch moreover has no need to justify his existence, since he is there by natural right. He is not impelled as usurpers and dictators are impelled, either to mesmerise his people by a succession of dramatic triumphs, or to secure their acquiescence by internal terrorism or by the invention of external dangers. The appeal of hereditary Monarchy is to stability rather than to change, to continuity rather than to experiment, to custom rather than to novelty, to safety rather than to adventure. The Monarch, above all, is neutral. Whatever may be his personal prejudices or affections, he is bound to remain detached from all political parties and to preserve in his own person the equilibrium of the realm. An elected President – whether, as under some constitutions, he be no more than a representative functionary, or whether, as under other constitutions, he be the chief executive – can never inspire the same sense of absolute neutrality. However impartial he may strive to become, he must always remain the prisoner of his own partisan past; he is accompanied by friends and supporters whom he may seek to reward, or faced by former antagonists who will regard him with distrust. He cannot, to an equal extent, serve as the fly-wheel of the State.
Harold Nicholson