“Let the other guy go first.” – Mark H. McCormack When it comes to negotiating a pay raise, or even working out a deal with a new client, follow the lead of the current crop of television’s police dramas. While you can’t threaten your customers with a sentence of “fifteen-to-life” if they don’t acquiesce to...

“Groups of three, four, or five perform better on complex problem solving than the best of an equivalent number of individuals.” – Paul Laughlin, Ph.D. The old saying goes: “Too many cooks spoil the broth.” But for problems more complex than cooking broth, the saying that would be more useful is: “Two heads are better...

“Nothing of great value in this life comes easily. The things of highest value sometimes come hard. The gold that has the greatest value lies deepest in the earth, as do the diamonds.” – Norman Vincent Peale Norman Vincent Peale, the champion of positive thinking, built an industry on his powerful philosophy, including dozens of...

“It’s only when the tide goes out that you discover who’s been swimming naked.” – Warren Buffett At every company, there is someone who has made it to the top with the consensus that he doesn’t deserve to be there. Either he got the job from an uncle who went to kindergarten with the CEO,...

“Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” – John D. Rockefeller The Rockefeller name is synonymous with greatness. Even in his youth, John D. Rockefeller saw greater options than those prescribed by society, as evidenced by his leaving high school to go to business school instead. His greatness was...

“Good tactics can save even the worst strategy. Bad tactics will destroy even the best strategy.” – General George S. Patton As Commander of the US Third Army, General Patton was known for getting the job done. Patton succeeded because he was a realist. He always took into account the overall plan and analysed what...

“The challenge in every conversation is to try to transcend the trivialities of polite chitchat.” – Keith Ferrazzi Today, you have to work a lot harder at developing deep and lasting relationships with your customers. Doing your homework before you go out prospecting is invaluable. People are flattered when you know something about them. Keith...

“If I only had a little humility, I’d be perfect.” – Ted Turner In 1980, Ted Turner had a vision to change television news programming forever by introducing the first 24-hour live news broadcast channel, Cable News Network (CNN). Going head to head against the entrenched broadcast news giants took guts. Many people called him...

“Obstacles are what you see when you take your eyes off the goal.” – Vince Lombardi Every sports team is judged by its character. Even when a team is losing by a score they cannot overcome and defeat is certain, a respectable team will still play its heart out until the final whistle. Often, when...

“Unless a man undertakes more than he possibly can do, he will never do all that he can.” – Henry Drummond Nineteenth-century Scotsman Henry Drummond gained early renown as an evangelist and a natural scientist. Not settling for either career track, the energetic Drummond combined his scientific and theological training to become an inspirational writer....

“Managers who are blind to the changes in this new cohort of free agents are operating like dangerous, deluded executive bigots.” – Marshall Goldsmith People have more choices about their personal and professional lives than ever. With this in mind, managers shouldn’t make any assumptions about employees staying on the job one second longer than...

“I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.” – Steve Jobs Some people are easily discouraged. It often doesn’t take outright failure from them to give up their pursuit; they can be stalled just as easily from a relatively minor drawback. They are ready to...