Tidbits & Quotes: November 2004

Excellence can be attained if you care more than others think is wise, risk more than others think is safe, dream more than others think is practical, and expect more than others think is possible.

Today, private-equity firms often seem to provide better corporate governance than is generally found at many public firms, whose shareholders usually own too small a stake to keep management in line. ... Despite their early reputation as asset-strippers, private-equity firms increasingly help companies to maximise their long-term value by protecting them from stockmarket pressure.

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself--nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days ...

A cat that jumps on a hot stove will never jump on a hot stove again. Neither will it jump on a cold stove.

Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.

On any given Sunday you're gonna win or you're gonna lose. The point is -- can you win or lose like a man?

I don't know if it will get better, if it gets different. But it has to get different to get better.

A recent survey from McKinsey is fairly chilling: Keeping poor performers [in management positions] means that development opportunities for promising employees get blocked, so those subordinates don't get developed, productivity and morale fall, good performers leave the company, the company attracts fewer A players, and the whole miserable cycle keeps turning. McKinsey asked people who had worked for subpar managers what it was like, and they agreed strongly that the experience "prevented me from learning," "hurt my career development," "prevented me from making a larger contribution to the bottom line," and, ultimately, "made me want to leave the company."

It's all about bucks, kid. The rest is conversation.

The end depends upon the beginning.

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

If sometimes you feel yourself little, useless, offended and depressed, always remember that you were once the fastest and most victorious sperm in your group.

I'm a Secret Agent. I am sorry.

The great advantage of being in a rut is that when one is in a rut, one knows exactly where one is.