Howard Schultz Quotes

You can't delegate turning a company around.

Your ability to shape your future depends on how well you communicate where you want to be when you get there. When ideas are communicated effectively, people follow and change.

And I was asked if I would come and help with the recovery of this great British company, Cable and Wireless, and I'm delighted to become part of the new and very talented management that have been brought in to that company as well.

I've worked in the business world and, as a futurist, the whole 20 years that I've led at Mosaic.

When I first came to Playboy, I thought I would go on and do something else in a few years. But when the company got into trouble with political and regulatory challenges, I felt that I could really lead the turn around.

Most of the clubs I have had, they have been in a precarious situation when I have taken over and I have had to change it, even going back to Scarborough and all that.

I walked in and inherited a management group that I didn't know very well. They didn't know me, and we had a very short window to put together a credible recovery plan.

Leaders must encourage their organizations to dance to forms of music yet to be heard.

There's a time that may come in an organization where leading by influence is not enough. When things are not going the way they need to go, there's a time when one has to step up... to set the organization back on the right direction.

Uncertainty is a permanent part of the leadership landscape. It never goes away.

As the BBC approaches the final phase of decisions about its future, it will be important for those involved to be established in post and ready to take responsibility for implementation of the outcome.

I turned Compaq from a small company with troubles into a computer powerhouse. We can do the same at Intershop.

Turnaround or growth, it's getting your people focused on the goal that is still the job of leadership.

When businesses go through hard times, through down markets, what do they do is they challenge every basic assumption of how they operate. They innovate. They create disruption for a while that leads them to even greater heights when the economy turns around.

A critical question to ask when bringing in a new CEO to take the reins of a company you started is: Do you want someone who will maintain company culture or reinvent it?

The cardinal responsibility of leadership is to identify the dominant contradiction at each point of the historical process and to work out a central line to resolve it.

I was one of those guys who never wanted to start their own business. I never saw myself as a leader. I saw myself as a great No. 2.

Steve Jobs came back to Apple in 1997 - the iPod came out 4 years later. 3 years after that is the first time his market cap grew. It took 7 years.

The art of statesmanship is to foresee the inevitable and to expedite its occurrence.

Apple Computer would not have reached its current peak of success if it had feared to roll the dice and launch products that didn't always hit the mark. In the mid-1990s, the company was considered washed up, Steve Jobs had departed, and a string of lackluster product launches unrelated to the company's core business.

My goal in coming to General Motors was to help restore profitability, build a strong market position and position this iconic company for success. We are clearly on that path.

I am honored to be able to serve GM at this critical juncture and take part in its reinvention.

A nation has to look ahead.

I think effective leaders typically are able to see the future to a certain degree and then try to take actions to shape it in some way.

Before becoming a college president, I helped over a dozen organizations find strategies to get through some very ugly crises.