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You are on the threshold of a really fantastic career, which is just waiting to take off to unimaginable heights. You are always busy working on your considerable talents and are trying to build up on your strengths. You try to glean as much as possible from your colleagues and superiors at work. Your job, your role in the company and your contribution to the company`s success, your future career path - all these and more are always uppermost in your mind. True, you are learning on the job, getting valuable inputs from the others in the office, but have you thought about how much you can learn from successful men who have made an indelible mark in their chosen careers? What better guide than a role model who has seen it all and managed to achieve astounding success?

• We begin with the inimitable Lee Iacocca, CEO - Chrysler Corporation 1978-1992 -
  
  "We are continuously faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems"
  
  Here is a man who firmly believed in encouraging and inspiring his employees. He was of the opinion that `problems` should be translated to mean `opportunities` and dealt with in a creative manner. Viewed thus, no problem is insurmountable and, instead of giving up easily, you should try to forge ahead and find proper solutions which can be implemented.

• "A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one."
  
  Wise words from Henry Ford, (1863-1947), the founder of the Ford Motor Company, (1903-1945)
  
  The staying power of quality products as against the transient nature of fad products cannot be emphasised better. Mass-produced, cheap imitations can never score over genuine quality products. Stand out from the competition with high quality products that will stand the test of time.

• "Price is what you pay. Value is what you get."
  
  ~ Warren Buffet, CEO of the Fortune 500 company, Berkshire Hathaway~
  
  You get what you pay for, is what Mr. Buffet means. That little extra you spend on making quality products is money well spent and it will translate into better sales and a steady clientele which appreciates your quality effort. Give your customers good quality for their money and you will find they are always ready to pay that much more for service or an item which they feel is good value for money.

• "Recovering from failure is often easier than building from success"
  
  ~ Michael D. Eisner, Chairman and CEO of the Disney Corporation ~
  
  Is your company a start-up? Ah, then you have a clear advantage over one that is already established because all changes and improvements are much more noticeable in a start-up company. If you are building up your company from scratch and making mistakes as you go along, it is always easier to recover when the stakes are still low and you have nothing to lose. That is because public expectations are much higher from a well- established company and, as a beginner, you can learn from your mistakes and rectify them. Production errors and missed deadlines are more likely to be forgiven because your customers are willing to give you time to understand your business. But if you are an established company, public expectation is always that much more and you must come up with constant methods of improving your services and products.

• "An overburdened, overstretched executive is the best executive, because he or she doesn`t have the time to meddle, to deal in trivia, to bother people."
  
  ~ Jack Welch, CEO General Electric ~
  
  Interesting fact about Welch is that he was the youngest CEO of General Electric. Keep busy and be productive is his slogan. As a manager, do not constantly keep checking up on your employees and thus waste your time. Instead, as a leader, see that you lead by example. Do not
  micromanage. Delegate tasks and resist the temptation to keep looking over your shoulder. Empower your staff to take action as and when required and reap the benefits as your entire team becomes more effective and productive.

We do hope these quotes have the intended impact on you guys who are leaders of teams in your offices. Wise words from experienced people go a long way towards better understanding of the job on hand and pave the way to better performance.