Don Soderquist Quotes

I've come to realize that beliefs and values together determine how a company operates and whether it reaches its full potential.

Your culture can sow both the seeds of success and failure in your organization.

In great organizations, a leader's words and actions model what really matters, and as a result, everyone gets on the same page and pulls together.

Culture is the personality of an organization. Therefore, culture governs much of how people think, act, interact, with others, and do their work. It is extremely powerful in determining the present and continuing success and the future direction of any organization Culture can literally determine whether a company has a future.

Ultimately, optimism is the exercise of faith. It is believing that what is invisible, what seems impossible, or what seems to be too daunting, can actually be.

I hope humor is a part of your life, too. It takes a positive attitude and a strong desire to enjoy life to see the humor around us, but having a little laughter sprinkled throughout your day is a great way to live.

Bottom line: it is clear that few things will diminish your life more quickly and profoundly than being ungrateful. Conversely, nothing will enlarge your life more quickly and dramatically than gratitude. I know poor people who are convinced they are rich.

Today's great leaders will make sure they have all the important information, appropriate discussion, and reflection so that they can act decisively when time is of great importance.

One of the greatest things Sam Walton taught me is that a leader stays involved in his business and close to his people so that he can determine the best course of action without wasting time.

A leader must keep his or her eye on the core customers and core business. I have seen many executives focus so much on new growth that they let the core business slip away.

If you want to be an effective leader, you need to cultivate one-on-one feedback from trusted individuals throughout your organization, touching all the different levels. Not people who will tell you what you want to hear, but what you need to hear.

It is vital for a leader to carefully dialogue with people to set goals that stretch them and grow the organization. He or she can push—but the goals must also be achievable and supported with adequate resources. The worst thing a leader can do if people react negatively to an unrealistic goal is ignore their concerns simply tell them to 'do whatever it takes.' What too often happens is that the people take the leader at face value and begin cutting corners, which may in turn lead to stretching or reshaping the truth, to that point that good people make bad and possibly illegal or unethical choices.

“Too many leaders are afraid of letting their minds wander too far; they put fences around their dreams. If you want to accomplish great things, you must dare to venture beyond today’s realities. The thinking behind ‘Imagine the Possible’ was that we needed to push even further, beyond the self-imposed limits of our current thought processes and previous experiences."

When was the last time you set your mind to wandering beyond today to imagine a brighter tomorrow? Let your mind go, dream a little, and you might just discover that anything is possible.

I believe there are hundreds and thousands of stories just waiting to be written by organizations and companies who have leaders that inspire people to accomplish things that seem impossible. The only way that can happen, though, is if the leader believes it is possible—has even a mustard seed of faith—and can convince his people that the seemingly impossible is indeed possible.