Top 32 Quotes & Sayings by Lou Gerstner

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

Lou Gerstner knows how to do a deal, and George Bush Sr., less so.

Never confuse activity with results.

Customer complaints are the schoolbooks from which we learn.

I think values are really, really important, but I also think that too many values are just words.

The more successful enterprises are the more they try to replicate, duplicate, codify what makes us great. And suddenly they're inward thinking. They're thinking how can we continue to do what we've done in the past without understanding that what made them successful is to take risks, to change and to adapt and to be responsive. And so in a sense success breeds its own failure. And I think it's true of a lot of successful businesses.

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

The last thing IBM needs right now is a vision.

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

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

I initially wanted to be a teacher and then I was going to become an engineer and build bridges and highways but pretty soon I went into the business world. I never did get to be a teacher except in a different way.

The thing I have learned at IBM is that culture is everything.

I just think we should look at this as a chess match," he said, "between the world's greatest chess player and Garry Kasparov.

The rewards system is a powerful driver of behavior and therefore culture.

A lot of people saved IBM. Yes, I was the leader of that team but I could never have done it without a group of IBMers helping me.

For the first month, I listened, and I tried very hard not to draw conclusions

Every now and then, a technology comes along that is so profound, so powerful, so universal, that its impact will change everything. It will transform every institution in the world. It will create winners and losers, will change the way we do business, the way we teach our children, communicate and interact as individuals.

If the practices and processes inside a company don't drive the execution of values, then people don't get it. The question is, do you create a culture of behavior and action that really demonstrates those values and a reward system for those who adhere to them?

It is not about bits, bytes and protocols, but profits, losses and margins.

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.

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

Everything starts with the customer.

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.

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

IBM needed - an enormous sense of urgency.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.