IMPROVING PERFORMANCE & RESULTS:
Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.
Records are made to be broken.
We are where we are, and what we are, because of the dominating thoughts that occupy our mind.
– W. Clement Stone
We have met the enemy, and it is us.
– Pogo
It is much easier to act yourself into a new way of feeling, than to feel yourself into a new way of acting.
– E. Stanley Jones
Our jobs determine to a large extent what our lives are like.
– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
It’s never too late to become what you might have become.
– George Eliot
The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do.
– Henry W. Longfellow
Attitude determines your altitude.
– Harry F. Banks
Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.
– Napoleon Hill
There is no failure except in no longer trying.
– Elbert Hubbard
Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Hard work without talent is a shame, but talent without hard work is a tragedy.
– Robert Half
The pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
– L.P. Jacks
You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.
– Henry Ford
Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
– John Wooden
You miss 100% of the shots you never take.
– Wayne Gretsky
All things are difficult before they are easy.
– John Norley
A winner never quits and a quitter never wins.
– Napoleon Hill
Some men see things as they are and say, “Why?” I dream of things that never were, and say, “Why not?”
– George Bernard Shaw
If you run your company on figures alone, you will go under. Why? Because the important figures are not there. What about the multiplying effects of a happy customer? What about the multiplying effects of an unhappy customer? Are they in your figures?
– W. Edwards Deming
MOTIVATION:
Giving someone the freedom to take responsibility releases resources that would otherwise remain concealed.
– Jan Carlson
SAS
Leadership appears to be the art of getting others to want to do something that you are convinced should be done.
– Vance Packard
Passion + Purpose = Performance
People do things for their reasons, not ours.
I can’t do what 10 people tell me to do, so I guess I’ll remain the same.
– Otis Redding
“Dock of the Bay”
People are always blaming their circumstances for where and what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want and if they can not find them, make them.
– George Bernard Shaw
If it’s to be, it’s up to me.
All motivation is self-motivation.
People do things to gain a benefit or avoid a loss.
The strongest human force for motivation is goal setting.
– Paul J. Meyer
90% of all failures come from two things:
1) not starting; or
2) quitting too soon.
Our greatest power is our power to choose.
– J. Martin Kohe
COMMUNICATION:
What we have here is a failure to communicate.
– Warden “Cool Hand Luke”
I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
– Seen on a poster
Never tell people how to do things. Tell what to do, and why, and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
– General George S. Patton
Under promise, over deliver.
You only get answers to questions you ask.
– Thomas K. Connellan, Ph.D.
Four ways people judge you:
1. How you look
2. How you act
3. What you say
4. How you say it
Paraphrasing can turn a heated argument into a constructive conversation.
– Robert J. McKain
The ability to communicate effectively plays a vital role in successful living. In your career it can mean success or failure, and in your personal life it can spell the difference between happiness and misery.
– Robert J. McKain
I’d rather know some of the questions than all of the answers.
– James Thurber
GOALS & EXPECTATIONS:
A good plan violently executed right now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.
– General George Patton
Goal setting is the strongest force for self-motivation.
– Paul J. Meyer
The person with the best plan of action wins.
– Paul J. Meyer
Create your own circumstances.
For things to get better, you’ve got to get better.
The saddest words of tongue or pen are these…it might have been.
– John G. Whittier
Acting on a good idea is better than just having a good idea.
– Robert Half
If you are not making the progress you are capable of and would like to make, it is because your goals are not clearly defined.
– Paul J. Meyer
The enemy of accountability is ambiguity.
We get what we focus on.
First we work on our goals, then our goals work on us.
A problem well stated is a problem half solved.
– Charles Kettering
A problem is your chance to do your best.
– Duke Ellington
FEEDBACK & POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT:
What gets rewarded gets done.
– Michael LeBoeuf, Ph.D.
A farmer can’t make a seed grow, but he can kill it.
Encouragement is the oxygen of the soul.
– George M. Adams
Flatter me, I may not believe you. Criticize me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you.
– William A. Ward
I want everybody to tell me the truth — even if it costs him his job
– Sam Goldwyn
Feedback is a tool for change.
– Unknown
Feedback is one of the most critical requirements for sustained high-level performance of any human act. Without frequent feedback and specific feedback, performance varies and often fails.
– Ferdinand Fournies
Giving specific, appropriate feedback is the quickest, cheapest, and most effective intervention for improving performance.
– Ferdinand Fournies
Once a year feedback doesn’t work.
– Unknown
As often as not, we chew people out because we’re angry or frustrated and it makes us feel better.
– Thomas K. Connellan, Ph.D.
SCOREKEEPING:
What gets measured gets done.
If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
– George Odiorne
Insight precedes change.
A short pencil is better than a long memory.
When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported back, the rate of improvement accelerates.
– Thomas S. Monson
Once a fair method of keeping score is put in place and accepted, the results can be truly staggering.
– Charles A. Coonradt
Separate the vital few from the trivial many.
– Joseph Juran
It’s a funny thing about life: If you refuse to accept anything but the very best you will often get it.
– W. Somerset Maugham
The greatest thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.
– Oliver Wendell Holmes
If better is possible, good is not enough.
Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.
– Vince Lombardi
COACHING:
It’s not what your people do when you’re there, it’s what they do when you’re not there that counts.
– Tom Peters
People have trouble making decisions. Therefore, make decisions for them which will be easy to agree with.
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
– Samuel Johnson
When you help enough other people get what they want, you will get what you want.
You have to confront nonperformance, but you need to do it in a way that creates commitment rather than grudging compliance or outright resistance.
– Thomas K. Connellan, Ph.D.
Tact is the art of making a point without making an enemy.
– Dr. Bruce A. Baldwin
Your ability as a manager is measured by what your employees do, not by what you do. Therefore, the facts of life dictate that, as a manager, you don’t get paid for what you do, you get paid for what your employees do. You need them more than they need you.
– Ferdinand F. Fournies
The best minute I spend is the one I invest in people.
It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no person can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
There is something much more scarce, far finer, rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability.
– Elbert Hubbard
The Gathering 