The most valuable assets of a 20th-century company were its production equipment. The most valuable assets of a 21st-century institution, whether business or nonbusiness, will be its knowledge, workers, and their productivity.

People in any organization, including bureaucrats and politicians, are always attached to the obsolete; the obsolescent; the things that should have worked but didn't; the things that once were productive and no longer are.

Entrepreneurs believe that profit is what matters most in a new enterprise. But profit is secondary. Cash flow matters most.

All great change in business has come from outside the firm, not from inside.

The successful person places more attention on doing the right thing rather than doing things right.

The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The true dangerous thing is asking the wrong question.

You can't manage what you don't measure.