Michael Porter Quotes

A target should go with every goal. A target is the value that defines success.

Efforts to preserve all industries will lower the national standard of living.

Billions are wasted on ineffective philanthropy. Philanthropy is decades behind business in applying rigorous thinking to the use of money.

Good leaders need a positive agenda, not just an agenda of dealing with crisis.

Unfortunately, I'm an engineer. I'm always thinking about, what's the task and how do I get it done? And some of my tasks are pretty broad, and pretty fuzzy, and pretty funky, but that's the way I think.

Without a goal analytics is aimless and worthless.

Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it's about deliberately choosing to be different.

Competitiveness is defined as the ability of companies to compete while maintaining or improving the average standard of living. If you are cutting wages to become more competitive, that's not really more competitive. It's raising the skill and the efficiency of those workers so that they can support and sustain that higher wage.

Strategy 101 is about choices: You can't be all things to all people.

The U.S. is facing a structural competitiveness problem that is leading to the weakest economy we have seen in generations.

The essence of strategy is that you must set limits on what you're trying to accomplish.

The purpose of the corporation must be redefined as creating shared value, not just profit per se. This will drive the next wave of innovation and productivity growth in the global economy.

The thing is, continuity of strategic direction and continuous improvement in how you do things are absolutely consistent with each other. In fact, they're mutually reinforcing.

Companies understand that if their employees are sick, it's really expensive. So despite the rhetoric I hear, thank God employers are still in the health-care system.

The underlying principles of strategy are enduring, regardless of technology or the pace of change.

Millennials are more aware of society's many challenges than previous generations and less willing to accept maximizing shareholder value as a sufficient goal for their work. They are looking for a broader social purpose and want to work somewhere that has such a purpose.

Technology has given us this wonderful opportunity to have low energy costs. We have to seize that, rather than keep debating and discussing and fighting over it.

You can't have a healthy society unless you have healthy companies that are making a profit, that are employing people and that are growing.

America used to be a uniquely productive, low-cost place to do business. We had efficient infrastructure. We had limited regulation. We believed in the market.

The chief strategist of an organization has to be the leader - the CEO.

If your goal is anything but profitability - if it's to be big, or to grow fast, or to become a technology leader - you'll hit problems.

The best CEOs I know are teachers, and at the core of what they teach is strategy.

Being an American doesn't mean that you're guaranteed a high wage. You have to be productive, and we have to create a very low-cost, efficient place to do business, and we've let all that slip in America.

As minorities and other immigrant groups become more important to our economy, the inner city is a crucible that gives us an early look at phenomena that are going to be spreading more broadly in the economy over time.

Ultimately, health care fails the most basic test. It's not organized around the needs of the patient.

You can't be all things to all people.

There's a fundamental distinction between strategy and operational effectiveness.

A strategy delineates a territory in which a company seeks to be unique.

Health care historically has been a very siloed field that's organized around medical specialties - urology, cardiac surgery, and so forth - and around the supply of these specialty services. The patient is the ping-pong ball that moves from service to service.

Strategy is choice. Strategy means saying no to certain kinds of things.