Category Archives: Quotes

“We’ve had three big ideas at Amazon that we’ve stuck with for 18 years, and they’re the reason we’re successful: Put the customer first. Invent. And be patient.” – Jeff Bezos

Have you heard this Leadership Quote from Jeff Bezos?

Jeff Bezos is an American internet entrepreneur best known as the founder and CEO of Amazon.com. He is famous for obsessing over customers, reducing friction in the user experience, and operational excellence.

Leadership quote Jeff Bezos customer first

Three Big Ideas

Jeff Bezos’ three big ideas may seem simple, but many have tried to pull them off and failed. In fact, most companies end up purely putting lip-service to the “put your customers first” line, instead of truly doing everything they can to improve the customer experience.

Why would you want to put your customers first?

Because customers pay your bills and your wages, by buying your product or service, that’s why.

This is something that most middle managers, even many CEOs unfortunately forget. But even when you have put the customer at the center of your universe, the next challenge is to invent the things that solve their problems instead of having someone else do it.

In fact Toys ‘R’ Us famously used Amazon in the early 2000s to sell toys online, through their merchant marketplace. However by doing so, Toys ‘R’ Us were giving away their data and their power over the customer transaction – data that Amazon willingly used to improve their service for other toy offerings and become even larger. Eventually Toys ‘R’ Us dissolved their partnership with Amazon to start their own online store, but by then the writing was already on the wall. Toys ‘R’ Us ended up filing for bankruptcy just fifteen years later.

Customer first. Invent. And have patience while you perform the small, incremental improvements every day.

– David McLachlan

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Leadership Quotes – Anthony Robbins on Success

November 14, 2020Quotesanthony robbins, better questions, leadership quoteDavid McLachlan

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“Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” – Anthony Robbins

Have you heard this leadership quote from Anthony Robbins?

Anthony Robbins is an American author, coach, motivational speaker and business owner known for his infomercials, seminars, and self-help books including Unlimited Power and Awaken the Giant Within. He has taught hundreds of thousands of people on success worldwide, so he knows a thing or two about it.

Leadership Quote Anthony Robbins Ask Better Questions

Changing Your Frame

We see the world through certain lenses – through the things we were taught as we were growing up, through our religion, our beliefs, our current physical restrictions. Changing any of these, and many others will change how we see the world and even how we believe what is possible.

What Anthony Robbins is saying in this quote is that by asking a different question you will start to shift the lens you see the world through, and by asking better questions you will get better results.

For example, if you ask yourself: “Why does this always happen to me?” your brain goes searching for all the reasons why these things always happen to you and comes back with demoralising things like “You’re stupid, you’re not worth anything more, you’ll never be good enough.”

But if you ask yourself “How can I get better?” your brain will search for all of the ways you might be able to get better – maybe exercise, meditate, study new things and work for a promotion.

“Seek and you shall find, ask and you shall receive.” is such a true quote. Your brain is constantly serving you, just make sure it is serving you in the right way, by making it search for the right answers to the right questions.

– David McLachlan

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Leadership Quote – Charles Darwin – The One That is Most Adaptable To Change

November 14, 2020Quotescharles darwin, leadership quoteDavid McLachlan

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“It is not the strongest nor the most intelligent of species that survives, but the one that is most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin

Have you heard this quote from Charles Darwin?

Charles Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution. His proposition that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors is now widely accepted, and considered a foundational concept in science.

Leadership Quote Charles Darwin It is not the strongest that survive

Because of this, it makes sense to listen when Charles Darwin says something about survivorship – after all, he studied the reasons behind species surviving or perishing, and the same can be said of people, civilizations, and even companies.

The World Changes – So Must We

Is the world the same as it was fifty years ago? Certainly not. There were no iPhones, no internet, limited globalisation, no social media, among many other things. If the world constantly changes it is folly to think that we can remain the same and still survive, or even thrive.

Charles Darwin saw this in the mid-to-late 1800s, and the same is true today, because the one true constant is change itself. Things are always evolving, things are always changing.

Kodak film and cameras saw the digital revolution coming early on – they even wrote a paper on the coming digital revolution in the early 1980s – fully twenty years before it happened. And yet, they still went bust because they were unable to change. Middle management in-fighting and bickering over organisational turf took priority over actually changing the company toward something profitable, even until the end when the writing was truly on the wall. Eventually, Kodak went bankrupt.

Meanwhile, Amazon always does business like it’s “day one” – in other words, the most vulnerable time for a business. They are constantly moving, constantly evolving, and its CEO Jeff Bezos is consequently the richest man in the world. Is he smarter than everyone else? No, not everyone. Is Jeff Bezos stronger than everyone else? No. But it is not the strongest nor the most intelligent of species that survives, it is the one that is most adaptable to change.

– David McLachlan

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Leadership Quote – Emerson – Go Your Own Path and Leave a Trail

November 14, 2020Quotesleadership quote, path may lead, ralph waldo emersonDavid McLachlan

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“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Have you heard this Leadership Quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson?

Emerson was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, and poet who published dozens of essays and gave more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States in the mid 1800s. He was a champion critic against the prevailing pressures of society.

Leadership Quote Emerson do not go where the path may lead

A Leader Makes Their Own Path

Many times we’ve heard true leaders needing to make their own path, even when others ridicule or make fun of them at first. Steve Jobs was ousted from his own company before he made his own way back and made it a success. Bill Gates was so adamant that computers were the future he gave everything towards making the software that controlled it. Jeff Bezos sold books online even as others thought it was crazy to do so, and he held fast during the dot com bust to prevail as the world’s largest marketplace a decade later.

None of these billionaires, these leaders, followed someone else into their billions. They formed their own path and left a trail for others to follow.

– David McLachlan

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Leadership Quote – Jim Rohn on the Challenge of Leadership

November 14, 2020Quotesjim rohn, leadership, quoteDavid McLachlan

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“The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not a bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” – Jim Rohn

Have you heard this leadership quote from Jim Rohn?

Jim is a well known author, entrepreneur, and speaker. One of his best speeches is “How To Have Your Best Year Ever” and is a speech that can be listened to over and over again, teaching some of the most powerful fundamentals of life, success and business.

Jim Rohn Quote Leadership

The Paradox of Leadership

In his quote, Jim Rohn rightly points out the paradox of leadership – that a true leader is strong enough within themselves to be humble, strong enough to know the difference they made and give credit to their people to lift their spirits and build their self esteem, but also strong enough not to be bowled over or led astray.

From this perspective, “strength” doesn’t mean beating someone up, it doesn’t mean putting others down, and it doesn’t mean all talk and no action.

A lot of it comes back to self-discipline, which Jim talks about frequently in his speeches. When a leader has the discipline within themselves, they clearly know when to draw the line and when to cross it.

– David McLachlan

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Leadership Quote – Ken Blanchard on Servant Leadership

November 17, 2019QuotesDavid McLachlan, ken blanchard, leadership quote, servant leadershipDavid McLachlan

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“Servant-leadership is all about making the goals clear and then rolling your sleeves up and doing whatever it takes to help people win. In that situation, they don’t work for you, you work for them.” – Ken Blanchard

Have you heard this leadership quote from Ken Blanchard?

Ken is a well known author and coach in the leadership field, having authored over 60 books including the 13 million best seller – “The One Minute Manager”. Most recently Ken’s thoughts have turned to servant leadership, where the leader serves the team. This really contradicts most modern managers and thinking, where people believe the team should serve the manager.

In fact, both are true – read on to the end to find out why.

Leadership Quote Servant Leadership

The Rise of Servant Leadership

With the advent of Agile and Agile project management and leadership methodologies, we have seen a greater focus on Servant Leadership.

In an Agile environment, Servant Leaders have a few roles.

Servant Leaders Facilitate

Rarely do Servant Leaders dictate to the team. Instead they facilitate discussion and encourage participation. What does this look like? It looks like a leader sitting down and collaboratively deciding outcomes or goals with the team. It looks like a leader checking in every day to see how things are going. It looks like a leader sitting with the team and asking “What’s working well, what’s not working well?” and then putting that feedback back into the process.

Servant Leaders Remove Blockers

In her groundbreaking research on employee motivation and engagement, Teresa Amabile found that employees were at their happiest when they were making progress. And it makes sense, doesn’t it? Now think about your own job. How many times have you been blocked and stalled for reasons beyond your control? You might be waiting on another person or department, on a customer or a payment or in many cases on a manager themselves.

Servant leaders check in with their team every day, ask what is blocking them from achieving their collaboratively set objectives, and help them put the pieces in place to remove those blockers. Maybe it is connecting them with another person, maybe it it having a conversation with a higher level of manager within the organisation, maybe it is improving the process itself, maybe it is raising an issue to be fixed with another relevant team. Either way, servant leaders help their team make progress, and that progress makes people happy.

Servant Leaders Are Coaches, not Bosses

Lastly, servant leaders coach their team. They don’t boss people around, they don’t give orders. As a coach, they don’t need to. But what is the function of a coach? Let’s think about it. A good coach will give you a playbook – they will give you the moves on the field of play and A good coach will give you feedback on your process – not on you as a person, they will not judge – but they will tell you when you’re running the wrong way or if your stride needs adjusting or your pass is on target. They will help you adjust your process so you can continually get better at the game you are playing.

And that leads to Mastery

Lastly, you might be wondering, what is the point of all this? Improving your game, removing blockers, constant practice and improvement – all of these things lead to one of our core driving forces called Mastery of a task. You see – people will go to great lengths to master something they love, are passionate about or are good at, even when they are not being paid. So money has nothing to do with it – they are being motivated by the process of mastery itself.

That’s why people play video games, do woodwork or stitchwork, play sports. It’s also why they take pride in being “that person” who knows how to use the database, or the system, or the sales method. They have spent many hours mastering it and can take pride in their work. And that pride leads to engagement, and that engagement leads to profit.

– David McLachlan

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Leadership Quote – Don’t Give Orders, Teach Them To Yearn

November 16, 2019QuotesDavid McLachlan, leadership quote, meaningful work, start with whyDavid McLachlan

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“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Have you heard this Leadership quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery? He was a French writer, poet, and pioneering aviator in the early 1900s, and his quotes on leadership really hit the mark. Why?

Because only now is the research starting to reveal just how right de Saint-Exupery was.

Leadership Quote Meaning Yearn for the sea

Start. With. Why.

By now you may have heard of the famous book by Simon Sinek, “Start with Why”. In it he explains the importance of not starting with “What”, not starting with “who”, but starting with “Why” we are doing what we are doing. The overarching reason for us all to be working together is the most important thing that leads to success, profit, and engagement.

Starting with the reason for doing something is also the key to Meaningful Work, and meaningful work has been shown to improve productivity. After all, how many times have you worked on something – maybe a hobby or a task for a friend – simply because you believed it was important? While we need money to survive, money is not the main motivating factor when it comes to doing great things in our work.

Research on Meaning

One study from Wharton University also discovered that meaning had a big impact on the quality of work. Employees in a donation collection call center were allowed to speak with some of the recipients of the donations they collected. Doing that, they could see the real difference it made to people’s lives. After hearing the impact their work had, and using those stories, donations collected by those employees tripled.

They didn’t whip their employees (the classic “stick”) or pay them hefty bonuses (the often used “carrot”). They taught them the meaning behind what they were doing – they taught them to yearn.

Researchers Jaqueline and Milton Mayfield also found the power of meaning in their research on what kind of pep-talks gave rise to action. After clarity or certainty evoking language (the path of what must be done), meaning-making language gave the biggest impact to motivation and results.

Bringing meaning to your work is something that can be done for free. It doesn’t cost a cent to do, all you have to do is be willing to do the thinking up-front with your team, write down your “why” and the reasons your work is important, see the benefits your work brings, and agree to it as a team.

– David McLachlan

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Leadership Quote – Clarity and Simplicity from General George Casey

November 14, 2019Quotesgeneral george casey, leadership quoteDavid McLachlan

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“Clarity and simplicity are the antidotes to complexity and uncertainty.” – General George Casey

Do you know this quote by General George Casey? General Casey served in the U.S. army his entire working life, most notably as the Chief of Staff of the United States Army from 2007 to 2011. He had to deal with all kinds of complexity and uncertainty – complexity that would cost thousands of lives if he made a wrong decision.

Dealing with it over so many years it goes without saying that he knows a thing or two about the antidote to complexity and uncertainty, and that is Clarity and Simplicity.

Leadership Quote Clarity and Simplicity

Clarity and Simplicity

Just as his quote is clear, concise and simple, so are the actions he recommends. But what does it mean to bring Clarity to your team?

Clarity means your team knows their objective. They know the goal, and they know where they are heading. Often a good leader will set these objectives collaboratively with their team, to help them to buy in to what needs to be done. Clarity means making a plan, and knowing the steps to execute that plan. When you have clarity on what needs to be done and how you are going to do it, there’s quite simply a much higher chance it will get done.

I have seen this personally happen time and time again across many different industries – from McDonald’s and the fast food industry to financial services, banking, trading and insurance, automotive and more. The teams that are clear on their objectives and their plan, are the teams that win.

And what does it mean to bring simplicity to your team?

Simplicity means being able to reduce the steps to getting the outcome you want. It means finding the lowest common denominator, the clearest path, the smoothest way forward. Albert Einstein is credited with saying “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” That means only someone who truly understands something can articulate it in simple terms – others will go on and on trying to convince everyone, including themselves.

So bring simplicity and clarity to your team – you will see their employee engagement soar and your productivity improve.

– David McLachlan

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Leadership Quote – Lao Tzu on Servant Leadership

November 12, 2019Quoteslao tzu, leadership, quote, servant leadershipDavid McLachlan

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“A leader is best when people barely know he exists…when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will all say: We did it ourselves.” – Lao-Tzu

This is an old, yet timeless leadership quote from the founder of Taoism, Lao Tzu, who lived in China around 600 years BC. And thankfully we can add “he or she“, and “his or her aim” today, as we’ve made strides towards equality over the last 1600 years that Lao Tzu wasn’t privy to, and we’re blessed with many wonderful women leaders, both high profile and local.

Do you know what this quote means? Lao Tzu is talking about “servant leadership”, 1600 years before it became a popular leadership method and framework, which is amazing in itself.

Leadership quote lao tsu We Did It Ourselves

Empowering Your People So They Can Do It Themselves

There are as many different leadership styles as there are personality styles, although you may know the most common ones: from the Autocratic, where the manager is primarily focused on getting the tasks done with little regard to a team’s feelings, to directing, democratic, laissez-faire or “hands-off”, charismatic and transactional.

But there is one leadership style which has grown in popularity, especially with the rise of Agile and Lean methodologies in and around software development, and that is the Servant Leader.

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Leadership Quote – Set a Goal to be Happy

November 4, 2019QuotesDavid McLachlan

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“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.” – Andrew Carnegie

This is a great quote from Andrew Carnegie – who was once the richest man in the world. He came from humble beginnings and built a steel empire in the early 1900s, so you might say he knows a thing or two about setting the right goals.

Leadership Quotes set a goal to be happy

Why The Right Goal Matters

Everybody tells you about goal-setting. We all know we need to write down where we want to be, or else the winds of circumstance will take us down a remote and different path.

But taking it to the next level, we need to set a goal that really gives us energy. When you write down what you want to do – start a business doing this or that, write a book, speak on stage, become a leader – do you feel happy? Do you smile slightly? Or does your stomach sink a little bit. If it sinks, it’s probably not something you are going to be able to work towards for 15 hours a day to set yourself apart from the pack.

Take the time to write down different things and notice your body’s reaction. You might call it your natural intuition, or trusting your gut. Simply by noticing it, you can choose a goal that inspires your hopes, just the same way that Andrew Carnegie was talking about.

– David McLachlan

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