Tom Peters is the business management guru best known for his best-selling book from 1982, In Search of Excellence. It’s one of the best-selling business books of all time and helped create the business book category (although there is some speculation that the data in the book isn’t as rigorous as it claimed to be). Since writing that first book, Mr. Peters has written and spoken on dozens of topics affecting businesses, including chaos, innovation, leadership, design, and excellence. Always provocative and entertaining, and sometimes controversial, here are a few things that Tom Peters has said over the years that we find inspirational:
“Leaders trust their guts. ‘Intuition’ is one of those good words that has gotten a bad rap. For some reason, intuition has become a ‘soft’ notion. Garbage! Intuition is the new physics. It’s an Einsteinian, seven-sense, practical way to make tough decisions. Bottom line, circa 2001 to 2010: The crazier the times are, the more important it is for leaders to develop and to trust their intuition.”
“There is no such thing as a minor lapse of integrity.”
“If I read a book that cost me $20 and I get one good idea, I’ve gotten one of the greatest bargains of all time.”
“Excellent firms don’t believe in excellence—only in constant improvement and constant change.”
“If a window of opportunity appears, don’t pull down the shade.”
“Test fast. Fail fast. Adjust fast.”
“The magic formula that successful businesses have discovered is to treat customers like guests and employees like people.”
—Tom Peters, Author
