Patrick Pichette Quotes

In any business, you have to evolve.

In a business, you've got to move on.

Startups allow technologists and scientists to take risks and change plans in a way that would be frowned upon in a big company. Having said that, big companies will play a key role in certain areas and in partnerships with little companies. Each has its strengths.

So in one leap we had gone from being a friendly society to something almost professional.

I just need to figure out how to grow without compromising.

As we continue to grow, the question is, how do you keep the company as innovative as it was 15 employees ago?

There are lots of lessons to learn from Amazon. Never stop innovating or questioning the fundamentals of your business. Disrupt yourself before others do. Continually motivate employees so that they never get too complacent - see Yahoo, AOL and many other Internet companies for evidence of what happens when they do.

One of my philosophies of building companies is the importance of velocity.

I know that with most companies that have a lot of success, it tends to throw you off, and you can become more conservative. One of our questions is, How do we keep from being pulled into conservatism because we're afraid of not being successful again?

One of the difficult things in a high-growth company is that, even with the best intentions, the company moves so fast, and growth happens so regularly. When you move at that rate, you have to be willing to change, and you have to be willing to take advice.

You have to be damn certain you're putting something better in its place.

Mathematicians are like managers - they want improvement without change.

The bigger a company gets, the more people are involved in decisions, the slower decisions get made. Look, the whole theory of startups is that three motivated people can go and do something that every company can't.

Basic philosophy, spirit and drive of an organization have far more to do with its relative achievements than do technological or economic resources, organizational structure, innovation and timing.

You've got to keep reinventing. You'll have new competitors. You'll have new customers all around you.

In embracing change, entrepreneurs ensure social and economic stability.

We started Kotter International to improve leaders' ability to deal with big, important transformations in organizations - and in their lives.

Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.

For me, the winning strategy in any start-up business is, 'Think big but start small.'

You learn every single day when you're running a company. You learn as you go.

I look at every business and ask, How long can this last? How can I identify the status quo and change it?

As an owner, you have a choice. Do you want to adopt a vision that you think is real sharp and real cutting edge and could get you from good to great - has a chance - or do you want to just say the organization is not about that, and we're not going to try to adopt a new coaching philosophy and vision.

Business ends up being very dynamic and situational.

For me, the most fun is change or growth. There are definitely elements of both that I like. Launching a business is kind of like a motorboat: You can go very quickly and turn fast.

If you're successful and growing, you can manage any way you want to. Growth makes so many dimensions of management easier. It's when growth stops that things get tough.