Of all the things that can have an effect on your future, I believe personal growth is the greatest. We can talk about sales growth, profit growth, asset growth, but all of this probably will not happen without personal growth.
Profit in business comes from repeat customers, customers that boast about your project or service, and that bring friends with them.
The difference is that raving fans, unlike satisfied customers, become part of your sales force. They tell friends, family and co-workers about your services and your products. And, of course, good things will happen!
I want everyone inside of Microsoft to take that responsibility. This is not about top-line growth. This is not about bottom-line growth. This is about us individually having a growth mindset.
Not being in tune with your customers is like living in an alternate reality; the way you think your customers feel about your product is not always the same as what your customers really think about your product.
All you can worry about as CEO is making sure your company continues to build great products, deliver the revenue, and keep your customers happy.
Entrepreneurship is all about an idea that creates differentiated business value to one's customers. You must be able to convince your customers about the benefits that association with you or your products will give them. People are ready to pay if they are convinced about your services or products.
As a leader, you absolutely must expend your energy engaging your frontline employees so that they will take care of customers, who will tell stories about how great your company is to other people, who will become new customers.
Start by identifying the qualities or characteristics that make you distinctive from your competitors - or your colleagues. What have you done lately - this week - to make yourself stand out? What would your colleagues or your customers say is your greatest and clearest strength? Your most noteworthy (as in, worthy of note) personal trait?
If you can't be honest with your friends and colleagues and loved ones, then what is life all about?
We need more men to talk about their experiences of being a dad with colleagues, friends and family. It shouldn't be surprising to hear about men being good fathers and it's one of the most powerful ways we can counter the harmful 'hapless dad' stereotype.
On the contrary, it's because somebody knows something about it that we can't talk about physics . It's the things that nobody knows anything about that we can discuss. We can talk about the weather; we can talk about social problems; we can talk about psychology; we can talk about international finance gold transfers we can't talk about, because those are understood so it's the subject that nobody knows anything about that we can all talk about!
What happens at the average church or synagogue or mosque is that I don't know many priests or ministers or rabbis who say to their congregation, 'go home and talk about the religion at the kitchen table with your kids...talk about God, talk about what this is all about.' They say in general, come back on the weekend, we'll talk to you about it.
I don't worry too much about what people think about my image, but I think I am pretty polite. My colleagues say I am a gentleman in my dealings with them, even when I disagree. I am difficult because I won't back off on things like the pay raise and the anti-terrorism bill. I'm not a go-along kind of guy. I do respect the institution. I do respect my colleagues. But I didn't go to Washington to make friends. That's not where my friends are.
I'll think I have a few wonderful friends and all of a sudden, ooh, here it comes. They do a lot of things. They talk about you to the press, to their friends, tell stories, and you know, it's disappointing.
When you have friends in the industry, you're always expected to talk about work. Seldom do you talk about stuff outside work with friends in the industry. Therefore, I don't have many actor friends, but I find lot of brotherly warmth from a few.