Lou Gerstner People Quotations

I think that my leadership style is to get people to fear staying in place, to fear not changing.

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.

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

The fundamental issue is: In the world of the Internet, is there a place for a packager of services? Does the customer want to go surf the Net and go to every one of 50,000 Web sites? Or will people pay a reasonable amount for somebody to go out and preselect and package what they want? My guess is they will both coexist.

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?

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.

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

People don't do what you expect but what you inspect.

Five years ago, using the Net to buy a car or trade stock or earn college credits was revolutionary, ... So why not envision a day when we vote with much greater convenience -- from our home or workplace -- or a day beyond that when issues are presented to all the people of the world and we vote as a global statement of individual preference without regard for conventions like political parties or national borders?

We're probably about five years into a 30-year cycle of transformation, ... But there is simply no doubt that 25 years from now, when people reflect on the seminal changes of the early days of the century we are about to begin, the impact of networked computing will stand in relief.