Jason Fried Quotes

I think all managers have to be so demanding.

A manager is not a person who can do the work better than his men; he is a person who can get his men to do the work better than he can.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

It's a lot easier to do good work when you have good words to say and work with good people.

Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can't be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people.

True leadership lies in guiding others to success. In ensuring that everyone is performing at their best, doing the work they are pledged to do and doing it well.

If I give you the right conditions to work, and I put you in a beautiful place, where you feel a little bit better about yourself because you know your work is being used for something greater than producing a profit, maybe you will get more creative; maybe you will want to work more.

Managers in all too many American companies do not achieve the desired results because nobody makes them do it.

It is not the horse that draws the cart, but the oats.

There is power in helping people get excited about what they do and inspiring and motivating them to unleash their full potential.

Some of the people on the teams I've been on need to be uplifted and kind of loved on. And some people don't need that at all - they need to be pushed; more hyped up.

Keeping people on their toes is the best way to get the best out of people.

I think it's really important, especially with the work space, to create a place that makes people feel creative, where they feel safe, and they feel like they're instantly connected.

Don't equate activity with efficiency. You are paying your key people to see the big picture. Don't let them get bogged down in a lot of meaningless meetings and paper shuffling. Announce a Friday afternoon off once in a while. Cancel a Monday morning meeting or two. Tell the cast of characters you'd like them to spend the amount of time normally spent preparing for attending the meeting at their desks, simply thinking about an original idea.

The Harvard Business Review recently had an article called 'The Human Moment,' about how to make real contact with a person at work: ... The fundamental thing you have to do is turn off your BlackBerry, close your laptop, end your daydream and pay full attention to the person.

It's annoying when you've got a guitar and you're working on music and then you have to go and do the shopping or someone calls your mobile and you get distracted or you have to go out and do something. So it's nice to just concentrate on it one hundred percent and give your all to it.

A leader's most valuable asset is not their time but their energy and ability to energize others.

Productivity is most important by engineering management rules, but enjoyment is most important for engineers. One stems from the other.

Nobody wants to be in a mediocre organization. You don't have the same energy flowing through.

When I can see someone that's posting the way that they're thinking about what's happening in the world right now or even art that they've created, it inspires me to do the same. It makes me turn off my phone and go paint a painting or go hike a mountain or go record a song. Those are the kind of things that social media helps me do. But it also can make me sit in my room and not do anything.

When your dawn theater sounds to clear your sinuses: don't delay. Jump. Those voices may be gone before you hit the shower to align your wits. Speed is everything. The 90-mph dash to your machine is a sure cure for life rampant and death most real. Make haste to live. Oh, God, yes. Live. And write. With great haste.

What you do to-day that is worthwhile, inspires others to act at some future time.

Work is the miracle by which talent is brought to the surface and dreams become reality.

When love is out of your life, you're through in a way. Because while it is there it's like a motor that's going, you have such vitality to do things, big things, because love is goosing you all the time.

In the end, there is no ideal condition for creativity. What works for one person is useless for another. The only criterion is this: Make it easy on yourself. Find a working environment where the prospect of wrestling with your muse doesn't scare you, doesn't shut you down. It should make you want to be there, and once you find it, stick with it. To get the creative habit, you need a working environment that's habit-forming. All preferred working states, no matter how eccentric, have one thing in common: When you enter into them, they compel you to get started.