Enterprise Excellence 2

Quotes

These quotes are intended to inspire and promote excellence in enterprise and to simulate fresh ideas, debate and practice on the role of enterprise in poverty alleviation. They are offered on their own merits and do not necessarily reflect the thinking of Transforming Business.

.'Business is the most powerful institution on earth today. It is more powerful than politics. Business serves us very well in some ways, but it doesn't serve us as fully as it should; it doesn't serve us fully as people.' Michael Rennie, Director, McKinsey & Co.

'Personal risk is the mainspring of entrepreneurial energy. The entrepreneur is not motivated by profit, but by a primitive survival impulse. If the business goes, so do you. And your car. And your house. Profit is what stops you ending up on the street.' Hugh Rayment-Pickard, Area Dean of Kensington

'Business is good for development and development is good for business'. World Business Council for Sustainable Development.

'Private businesses are important partners in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Long-term poverty reduction in developing countries will not happen without sustained economic growth, which requires a vibrant private sector.' The Sachs report, Investing in Development: A Practical Plan to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

'My husband is unemployed and we did not have enough money to send our two sons to school. Now they can attend because I earn my own income. Every day I prepare traditional Venezuelan desserts. I sell these around town and I earn some money. At the moment I am participating in the Women's Bank/ConocoPhilips capacity programme and I am improving my skills for running my own business.' Tomasa Oncoré, microentrepreneur, Venezuela.

'The costs associated with crime, corruption, over-regulation, weak contract enforcement and inadequate infrastructure [in developing countries] can amount to over a quarter of company turnover, or more than three times what companies typically pay in tax.' World Bank, World Development Report 2005: A Better Investment Climate for Everyone

'Economics, as it has emerged, can be made more productive by paying greater and more explicit attention to the ethical considerations that shape human behaviour and judgment.' Prof Amartya Sen, Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics.

'The limited liability corporation is the single greatest discovery of modern times; even steam and electricity are far less important.' Nicolas Butler, President of Columbia University, in 1911.

'There is an alternative to terror. It is called, in the political order, democracy. In the economic order, it is called the dynamic enterprise economy. (...) It empowers poor people from the bottom up. (...) A dynamic economic sector is the poor's best hope of escaping the prison of poverty. It is the only system so far known to human beings to take poor people and make them, quite soon, middle class, and some of them even (horrors!) rich.' Prof Michael Novak, American Enterprise Institute.

'There is no single policy to which one can point and say – this built the Morris business. I should think I must have made not less than one thousand decisions in each of the last ten years. The success of a business is the result of the proportion of right decisions by the executive in charge.' William Morris (Viscount Nuffield), car manufacturer, in 1924.

'Failure is a few errors in judgement, repeated every day.' Jim Rohn, business writer and entrepreneur.

'It is because business executives recognize the need for business principles and an explicit set of values at the heart of their companies that companies have become such important carriers of values in our society'. Brian Griffiths (Lord Griffiths of Fforestfach), Vice Chairman, Goldman Sachs.

Promoting wealth creation – at home and abroad - means changing the climate of opinion...We need to campaign for capitalism. To promote profit. To fight for free trade. To remind, indeed to educate, our citizens about the facts of economic life. David Cameron, Leader of the UK's Conservative Party.

'From virtue comes from all wealth.' Socrates.

'Businesses depend on their people feeling a real sense of purpose in their work.(...) People need to recapture a sense of calling and meet others who want their work to make a difference' Charles Hippsley, AEA Technology.

'Celebrate what you want to see more of.' Tom Peters.

'Organizations depend on relationships. Business, for example, can be done only in the context of such relationships as those with customers, suppliers, employees, investors and regulators. Managing and developing these relationships is at the heart of effective business strategy.' John Ashcroft and Michael Schluter in Jubilee Manifesto.

'Ninety-eight percent of our assets are our people', Director of Finance and Human Resources, Microsoft.

'To me, business isn't about wearing suits or pleasing stockholders. It's about being true to yourself, your ideas and focusing on the essentials.' Richard Branson, Chairman, Virgin.

'More and more countries of the world have decided that corporations do a better job of generating and deploying capital than do states.' Prof Max Stackhouse, Princeton.

'I believe that companies, doing business in a responsible and sustainable way, can help raise the quality of life and standards of living in some of the poorest parts of the world' Anthony Burgmans, Chairman, Unilever.

'Nimble, responsive, and without restraint, yet thoughtful, informed, and ever responsible. While our approach may seem a paradox to some, this is the entrepreneurial way – the hallmark of innovative thinking and a springboard for transformative ideas.' The Kauffman Thoughtbook 2005.

'In theory, practice and common sense terms...most routes out of poverty start with enterprise' Kurt Hoffman, Director, Shell Foundation.

'Development in emerging markets cannot succeed without business. Conversely, business cannot succeed without an active and engaged civil society, committed to holistic solutions, and most importantly relentlessly pursuing active partnerships with business.' W. Robert de Jongh, Latin America Regional Director, SNV (a Netherlands-based international development organization).

'NGOs are now turning to market forces as a catalyst for change' Claude Martin, Executive Director, WWF.

'The constraints on developing a sustainable private sector are widely known – and generally accepted.(...) Now the focus must shift from determining what the constraints are to how they are to be lifted and who is to lift them.' UNDP, Unleashing Entrepreneurship: Making Business Work for the Poor.

'Governments must take on the central role of creating an investment climate across Africa that supports enterprise and the role of the private sector and provides a clear and predictable economic policy framework for business to succeed.' Jeroen van de Veer, CEO, Shell.

'I shop, therefore I am.' Sure, it's satire, but there's a grain of truth here. Without buying and selling – without trade between one person and another or one country and another – we're all of us much more likely to be, well, poor. Trade Matters in the Fight Against Poverty, UK Government's Department of International Development (DFID).

.'The future of Africa lies not with external actors but within Africa itself. The future of Africa lies here in Africa.' Paul Boateng, British High Commissioner to South Africa.

'The developed world has a moral duty – as well as a powerful motive of self-interest – to assist Africa. We believe that now is the time when greater external support can have a major impact and this is a vital moment for the world to get behind Africa's efforts.' Our Common Interest, report of the Commission for Africa.

'It would appear that, on the level of individual nations and of international relations,] the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs.' Pope John Paul II in Centesimus Annus.

'I am frankly enraged that business people continue to be assigned the role of moral menials.' Prof Laura Nash, Harvard Business School.

'I think that because this is a moral universe, then right will prevail, goodness will prevail, compassion will prevail, laughter will prevail, love, caring, sharing will prevail. Because we are made for goodness. We are made for love.' Desmond Tutu, former Archbishop of Cape Town.

'Doing well and doing good are not opposites, they're companions.' Dave Olsen, Senior VP, Starbucks.

'Civil society rests on moral relationships. They are covenantal rather than contractual. They are brought about not by governments but by us a husbands and wives, parents, friends and citizens, and by the knowledge of what we do and what we are makes a difference to those around us. (...) Renewing society's resources of moral energy is the program, urgent but achievable.' Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi.

'Boards and companies are shorthand for the people who make them up. People decide a company's purpose and the behaviour of a company is the sum of the behaviour of the people who make it up. Regulation of the right kind is essential, but it is on standards of individual conduct that the reputation of business ultimately depends.' Sir Adrian Cadbury.

'Character calls for strength of conviction, coupled with an energetic will. It demands a sense of calling, along with the faith that you will succeed in it.' Abraham Kuyper, former Prime Minister of the Netherlands.

'Spiritual capital, as I define it, is wealth that helps to make the future of humanity sustainable as well as wealth that nourishes and sustains the human spirit. It is reflected in what a community or an organization believes in, what a community or an organization exists for, what it aspires to, what it takes responsibility for.' Danah Zohar, author and management consultant.

'The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.' Stephen Covey, best-selling business author.

'Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could not hear the music.' Angela Monet.