None of these are new, but I think they all have use and seem to apply to a lot of what I spend my time with. No particular order:
- Never put off ‘til tomorrow what you can put off ‘til the day after tomorrow.
-Mark Twain
A nice jibe on the subject of procrastination. A major challenge today, in the era of distraction, overload, too many choices and extremely heavy marketing.
- The cost is what you pay; the value is what you get.
-Warren Buffett
The most talented investor in the history of investing shares the incredibly obvious with us peons. This message is crucial for anyone in the broader category of selling, such as educators, health care providers, IT people, etc. However it’s very easy for the message to get ignored and then subverted, to the detriment of both parties.
- While the individual man is an insoluble puzzle, in the aggregate he becomes a mathematical certainty. You can, for example, never foretell what any one man will do, but you can say with precision what the average number will be up to. Individuals vary, but percentages remain constant.
-Sherlock Holmes via A.C. Doyle
This is a description of the difference between a stereotype and a generalization. Stereotypes are limiting and inherently unfair. Generalizations are expressions of averages, and can be sensible and useful, particularly in complex environments.
- One of the goals of modern management is to make the human strengths increase performance while human weakness is neutralized and largely rendered harmless.
-Peter Drucker
A make or break point in the growth of any organization. All individuals have strengths and weaknesses and likes and dislikes. If you’re small enough, you want to be at least a “c” player in all necessary areas of business. As you grow, a primary task is to separate job functions and areas of responsibility so that every one in the organization is doing things in which they excel. The end result we are looking for is, “only do the things that only you can do.” It’s bad grammar, but does get the point across. I guess I’ll never be Oscar Wilde, and that’s a good thing.
- In the developed countries, the dominant factor in the Next Society will be something to which most people are now only just beginning to pay attention: the rapid growth in the older population and the rapid shrinking of the younger generation.
-Peter Drucker
This is the driving issue behind our economic challenges of Social Security solvency, unfunded pensions, bankruptcies of states, cities and other governmental entities. There are not any easy answers to this, because it’s primarily being driven by population parameters.
One of my main ways of bring value to my clients is to take the ideas of publications across a wide range of sources and pull out the ideas that we can most effectively use. There is a surprising wealth of modern thinkers and philosophers living today, and I will be posting more of their thought in subsequent blogs. Meanwhile use these thoughts to guide your pathways in 2014.