Lou Gerstner Quotes

Quotes about:

• You don't get points for predicting rain. You get points for building arks.

  Lou Gerstner

  Rain, Ark, Building

  32 Copy quote

• Until I came to IBM, I probably would have told you that culture was just one among several important elements in any organization's makeup and success - along with vision, strategy, marketing, financials, and the like... I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn't just one aspect of the game, it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.

  Lou Gerstner

  Business, Makeup, Games

  "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?: Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround". Book by Louis V. Gerstner Jr., 2002.

  86 Copy quote

• People don't do what you expect but what you inspect.

  Lou Gerstner

  People

  33 Copy quote

• Fixing culture is the most critical − and the most difficult − part of a corporate transformation… In the end, management doesn’t change culture. Management invites the workforce itself to change the culture.

  Lou Gerstner

  Culture, Fixing, Management

  63 Copy quote

• Never confuse activity with results.

  Lou Gerstner

  Results, Activity

  8 Copy quote

• Vision is easy. It's so easy to just point to the bleachers and say I'm going to hit one over there. What's hard is saying, OK, how do I do that? What are the specific programs, what are the commitments, what are the resources, what are the processes we need in play to go implement the vision, turn it into a working model that people follow every day in the enterprise. That's hard work.

  Lou Gerstner

  Work, Commitment, Play

  "In Focus: Lou Gerstner". Interview with Richard Quest, edition.cnn.com. July 2, 2004.

  43 Copy quote

• In the end an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.

  Lou Gerstner

  Organization, People, Ends

  "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?". Book by Lou Gerstner, 2002.

  39 Copy quote

• You can’t mandate [cultural change], can’t engineer it. What you can do is create the conditions for transformation. You can provide incentives. You can define the marketplace realities and goals. But then you have to trust. In fact, in the end, management doesn’t change culture. Management invites the workforce itself to change the culture.

  Lou Gerstner

  Reality, Goal, Culture

  41 Copy quote

• Watch the turtle. He only moves forward by sticking his neck out.

  Lou Gerstner

  Perseverance, Moving, Turtles

  31 Copy quote

• Everything starts with the customer.

  Lou Gerstner

  Great Customer Service, Customer Experience, Customers

  24 Copy quote

• I don't want to use the word reorganization. Reorganization to me is shuffling boxes, moving boxes around. Transformation means that you're really fundamentally changing the way the organization thinks, the way it responds, the way it leads. It's a lot more than just playing with boxes.

  Lou Gerstner

  Change, Moving, Mean

  "In Focus: Lou Gerstner". Interview with Richard Quest, edition.cnn.com. July 2, 2004.

  37 Copy quote

• I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn't just one aspect of the game; it is the game.

  Lou Gerstner

  Games, Culture, Aspect

  "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?". Book by Lou Gerstner, 2002.

  23 Copy quote

• The last thing IBM needs right now is a vision.

  Lou Gerstner

  Vision, Needs, Lasts

  40 Copy quote

• If life was so easy that you could just go buy success, there would be a lot more successful companies in the world. Successful enterprises are built from the ground up.

  Lou Gerstner

  Life, Motivational, Success

  60 Copy quote

• Technology has limitations on what it can accomplish. You do not.

  Lou Gerstner

  Technology, Accomplish, Limitation

  19 Copy quote

• I think that my leadership style is to get people to fear staying in place, to fear not changing.

  Lou Gerstner

  Thinking, People, Style

  21 Copy quote

• Computers are magnificent tools for the realization of our dreams, but no machine can replace the human spark of spirit, compassion, love, and understanding.

  Lou Gerstner

  Inspirational, Dream, Compassion

  34 Copy quote

• No institution will go through fundamental change unless it believes it is in deep trouble and needs to do something different to survive.

  Lou Gerstner

  Believe, Different, Needs

  13 Copy quote

• You can never be comfortable with your success, you've got to be paranoid you're going to lose it.

  Lou Gerstner

  Paranoid, Comfortable, Loses

  "In Focus: Lou Gerstner". Interview with Richard Quest, edition.cnn.com. July 2, 2004.

  21 Copy quote

• Customer complaints are the schoolbooks from which we learn.

  Lou Gerstner

  Service Culture, Inspirational Customer Service, Inspirational Service

  12 Copy quote

• I look for people who work to solve problems and help colleagues, I sack politicians.

  Lou Gerstner

  People, Looks, Helping

  7 Copy quote

• We do not need Departments of Commerce, Labor, and Education; we need a single Department of Skills that will promote an integrated approach to global competitiveness.

  Lou Gerstner

  Skills, Needs, Integrated

  9 Copy quote

• We built this company from the customer back, not from the company out.

  Lou Gerstner

  Business, Company, Customers

  25 Copy quote

• When I arrived at IBM, there were 'Team' signs all around. I asked, 'How do people get paid?' They told me, 'We pay people based on individual performance.

  Lou Gerstner

  Team, People, Pay

  27 Copy quote

• I have always believed you cannot run a successful enterprise from behind a desk.

  Lou Gerstner

  Running, Business, Successful

  7 Copy quote

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