Models:
PEOPLE:
"Success is achieved by developing our strengths, not by eliminating our weaknesses." - Marilyn vos Savant
"Managers play checkers with their employees, but leaders play chess." - Marcus Buckingham
"If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it." - Marcus Aurelius
"The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are." — Carl Jung
"The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” - Pablo Picasso
“Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.” — Howard Aiken
“There are two types of people in this world: those who think people can be divided up into two types, and those who don’t.” - Groucho Marx
STRATEGY:
“The tide is often more important than the swimmers.” - Warren Buffett
"Choose to be the best rather than the biggest.” - Anonymous
"Competition is for losers.” - Peter Thiel
“Destroy your enemy without fighting him.” – Sun Tzu
“The common trait of people who supposedly have vision is that they spend a lot of time reading and gathering information, and then they synthesize it until they come up with an idea.” - Fred Smith
"Positioning is the silent force behind success.” - Jack Trout
"Skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been." - Wayne Gretzky
"Value chain analysis illuminates the stage of activity where a firm can best create value for its customers and build a competitive advantage.” - Michael E. Porter
"The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.” - Michael E. Porter
“A strategy should hurt. The trade-offs - where you invest time and resources and where you don’t - should be painful and disappointing, either internally or to your customers. There’s no such thing as a strong strategy that prioritizes everything at once.” - Claire Hughes Johnson
“I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.” - Charlie Munger
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” - Sun Tzu
LEADERSHIP:
"People, then products, then traffic, then revenue." - Tony Hsieh & Marissa Mayer
"If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it." - Marcus Aurelius
"Positioning is the silent force behind success.” - Jack Trout
“All success is a lagging indicator.” - Ryan Holiday
“Let the honor of your students be as dear to you as your own.” - Rabbi Elazar
“Communicate, communicate, and by the way, communicate.” - Sigal Barsade
“Growth from 100 to 400 people happens quickly if you have real traction. I sometimes call hyperscaling ‘riding the dragon’: You need your dragon riders - your fearless leaders - before the beast takes off to still greater heights.” - Claire Hughes Johnson
“Leadership is strategic, and management is more about implementation. Leadership is about setting direction, knowing where you want to go, convincing others to go with you, and explaining why you’re going there: setting standards, setting expectations, setting tone. Management is about implementing that: getting the processes right, getting the people right, getting the teams right.” - Zanny Minton Beddoes - Editor in Chief, The Economist
“Management has a lot to do with whether we’re playing the game well, we’re developing the tools, we know what the dashboard looks like, we’re paying attention to the dashboard, and so on. Leadership has a lot to do with how you set the spirit of the organization. To some degree, it could be how big the goal is and what the goal is. But usually, it’s a goal that’s set in a way that isn’t necessarily operationalized well. Management is how you get the mechanics of the pieces coming together. And leadership is more about creating a culture or energy of engagement - belief in the importance of winning. It’s that ‘We can do this’ energy.” - Reid Hoffman
“There is no better teacher than history in determining the future. There are answers worth billions of dollars in a $30 history book.” - Charlie Munger
EFFECTIVENESS:
"Efficiency is doing better what is already being done. Effectiveness is deciding what to do better.” - Peter Drucker
"You've got to have models in your head. And you've got to array your experience—both vicarious and direct—on this latticework of models.” - Charlie Munger
“Life punishes the vague wish and rewards the specific ask.” - Tim Ferriss
On Innovation. “I have a healthy disregard for the impossible.” - Larry Page
”If you never hear no from clients, if the other side in a negotiation has never balked to something you’ve asked for, then you are not pricing yourself high enough, you are not being aggressive enough.’ - Ryan Holiday
“Unspoken expectations are premeditated resentments.” — Neil Strauss
"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” - Chinese Proverb
“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” - George Bernard Shaw
“Only deal with price if price is the last issue on the table. To find out if it is the last issue, take price off the table and see what happens. If nothing happens, there is something important missing. Find out what it is.” - Mahan Khalsa
"Asking for help is a superpower anyone can have but only some people use. It is brave to ask for help. Asking for help is the first step toward finding a mentor. Mentors can help us change our lives if we let them." — Alexi Pappas, Bravey
“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.” - Joel Arthur Barker Ratcliffe
“Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” - Winston Churchill
SALES:
“It takes hard work to make sales look easy.” - Peter Thiel
"Expect a little, get a little; expect a lot, get a lot.” - Anonymous
“Destroy your enemy without fighting him.” – Sun Tzu
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." - Seneca the Younger
“Courage is only the accumulation of small steps.” - Gyorgy Konrad
“Do the thing you fear, and the death of fear is certain.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.” Theodore Levitt (move off the solution)
"In human decision-making, losses loom larger than gains.” - Daniel Kahneman
“The invisible advantage is choosing to do what other people could do, but don't.” - Jeff Olson
“Mastery is the best goal because the rich can’t buy it, the impatient can’t rush it, the privileged can’t inherit it, and nobody can steal it. You can only earn it through hard work. Mastery is the ultimate status.” - Derek Sivers
"Stop worrying about where the arrow lands. Master the art of drawing the bow," - kyūdō, the Japanese art of archery.
CYBERSECURITY:
“Cybersecurity needs to be resilient; less elevator, more escalator.” - Anonymous
"Identity and access management is at the heart of cybersecurity; it is critical to verify that people are who they say they are and that they have the appropriate access to systems and data." - Bruce Schneier
“Cybersecurity software is deeply embedded in the customer systems by design, interacting with areas such as the kernel of an operating system, which contains the core functions of a computer. Exchanges between the software and these functions are so complex, they are the computer science equivalent of brain surgery.” - Dave DeWalt
"The key to understanding how cyberattacks work is to think like an attacker. The cyber kill chain provides a valuable perspective on the adversary’s tactics, techniques, and procedures." - Bruce Schneier
Tools:
TEAM BUILDING:
"First who, then what." - Jim Collins
"The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team." - Phil Jackson
"Groups are often much smarter than the smartest people in them." - James Surowiecki, author of "The Wisdom of Crowds.”
"Success is achieved by developing our strengths, not by eliminating our weaknesses." - Marilyn vos Savant
"If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it." - Marcus Aurelius
“Big Hearted Champions who pick up the Trash.” - Reed Hastings
“I often think of my work as a manager as clearing the path my team will need to travel. Anything that slows them down is on me.” - Claire Hughes Johnson
“I’ve always been comfortable delegating. I’ve always had a sense that the best way to lead at any level is to surround yourself with people who really can do that job better than you can.” - Dan Weiss, president & CEO, Metropolitan Museum of Art
"All men are created equal. Some work harder in preseason." - Emmitt Smith
“Diversity isn’t about appearances but rather different perspectives shaped by experience.” - Joe Gerstandt
When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed. - Chatham House Rule
TRAINING:
"No man was ever wise by chance." - Seneca the Younger
The CFO asks, "What happens if we invest in developing our people and then they leave us?" and the CEO responds, "What happens if we don't, and they stay?” - Anonymous
“We don’t rise to the level of our aspirations; we fall to the level of our training.” - Archilochus
"He not busy being born is busy dying" is from the song "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" by Bob Dylan
"I just sit in my office and read all day.” - Warren Buffett
“The soul never thinks without an image.” - Aristotle
TERRITORY PLANNING:
“Prioritize: Do fewer, Do Them Better.” - Mahan Khals
“Scarcity is the one thing you can never have enough of.” — Marc Randolph
“It is impossible to produce superior performance unless you do something different from the majority.” - Sir John Templeton
ACCOUNT PLANNING:
"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” - Abraham Lincoln
“I never won a fight in the ring; I always won in preparation.” - Mohammad Ali
"An idiot with a plan can beat a genius without a plan." - Warren Buffett
“Sometimes it takes us months to get a referral; we would rather wait until we get one than make a low-percentage cold call.” - Mahan Khalsa
"Positioning is the silent force behind success.” - Jack Trout
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." - Seneca the Younger
“Failing to prepare is preparing to fail.” - Benjamin Franklin
"Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness” - Proverb
OPPORTUNITY DEVELOPMENT:
“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” - W.E. Deming
"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." - Albert Einstein
“Destroy your enemy without fighting him.” – Sun Tzu
"The great sin for a leader is not in being defeated but in being surprised." - Frederick the Great
“Life punishes the vague wish and rewards the specific ask.” - Tim Ferriss
"If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it." - Marcus Aurelius
“No plan survives first contact with customers.” - Steve Blank - on staying innovative & flexible.
“People don’t want to buy a quarter-inch drill. They want a quarter-inch hole.” Theodore Levitt (move off the solution)
”Amateurs have a goal. Professionals have a system.” - James Clear
“We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.” - Richard Feynman
"Fall seven times, stand up eight.” - Japanese Proverb
“The single most powerful thing you can do in a relationship, whether it’s personal or professional, is to give someone 100% of your attention." - Brad Jacobs
“Hope clouds observation.” — Frank Herbert, Dune
“No one ever made a decision because of a number. They need a story.” — Daniel Kahneman
CADENCE:
“It takes hard work to make sales look easy.” - Peter Thiel
"Expect a little, get a little; expect a lot, get a lot.” - Anonymous
"Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.” - Zen Proverb
“There is no formula for success—you just begin and then you continue. I’m often asked how to have a career in stand-up and the answer is confoundingly simple: Do the work. Over and over again, just do the work. After you build the courage to get onstage that first time, it’s all about repetition.” — Cameron Esposito