A corporation is a living organism; it has to continue to shed its skin. Methods have to change. Focus has to change. Values have to change. The sum total of those changes is transformation.
Andy GroveRead
You need to plan the way a fire department plans: it cannot anticipate where the next fire will be, so it has to shape an energetic and efficient team that is capable of responding to the unanticipated as well as to any ordinary event.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Effective leadership requires preparation for the unpredictable, focusing on building a capable and adaptable team.
In this quote, Andy Grove emphasizes the importance of being prepared for unforeseen challenges in leadership and management. Just as a fire department cannot predict where a fire will occur, leaders must cultivate an adaptable and dynamic team that can respond efficiently to unexpected situations while also managing routine operations. This approach ensures that an organization remains resilient and can navigate both ordinary and extraordinary challenges effectively.
Themes
LeadershipTeamworkAdaptabilityPreparednessEfficiency
In practice
Example use cases
In a leadership seminar, to highlight the importance of team adaptability.
More from Andy Grove
All quotes →Accept that no matter where you go to work, you are not an employee you are a business with one employee, you. Nobody owes you a career. You own it, as a sole proprietor.
Andy GroveRead
There is at least one point in the history of any company when you have to change dramatically to rise to the next level of performance. Miss that moment - and you start to decline.
Andy GroveRead
Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.
Andy GroveRead
By the late '90s, those who were paying attention perceived the Internet as a 20-foot tidal wave coming, and we are all in kayaks.
Andy GroveRead
Congress will pass a law restricting public comment on the Internet to individuals who have spent a minimum of one hour actually accomplishing a specific task while on line.
Andy GroveRead
Similar quotes
The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
Hermann GoringRead
Obama does seem to have what both FDR and Lincoln had, which is the recognition that you have to hold back at times and then wait to come forward.
Doris Kearns GoodwinRead
Such a man the times have demanded, and such, in the providence of God was given us. But he is gone. Let us strive to deserve, as far as mortals may, the continued care of Divine Providence, trusting that, in future national emergencies, He will not fail to provide us the instruments of safety and security.
Abraham LincolnRead
One of the things that was really an issue was I did not want to just be a woman secretary of state. I wanted to be a secretary of a state who was a woman, but not just chosen for that particular reason.
Madeleine AlbrightRead
I will be vigilant to protect the independence and integrity of the Supreme Court, and I will work to ensure that it upholds the rule of law and safeguards those liberties that make this land one of endless possibilities for all Americans.
John RobertsRead
I don't want people to think you have to look a certain way or be a certain mold to be able to be a quarterback.
Colin KaepernickRead