Robert Kierlin Quotes
16 quotes from Robert Kierlin — Founder and former CEO of Fastenal, which grew from a single store selling nuts and bolts into a $40B+ market cap indus….
“As a leader, if you're not spending 90% of your time teaching, you're not doing your job. A business achieves long-term success by continuously replenishing leaders inside the organization.”
“Plan your work, work your plan, and have a very big eraser.”
“Innovate, Build & Execute.”
“The power of a company lies in its people and their ability to work together toward common goals.”
“Companies that thrive do so because they embrace a teamwork approach to problem-solving.”
“Success is not just about the numbers; it's about the people who drive those numbers.”
“In business, the most important asset is the people who work for you.”
“Empowering employees to make decisions is key to fostering a strong company culture.”
“As a leader, if you're not spending 90% of your time teaching, you're not doing your job.”
“Listen rather than speak.”
“We've never really cared how everybody else does things or tried to follow them. We've found that hard work and good thinking have led to the best possible results.”
“Organizations succeed to the extent that all of their members pursue a common goal. This is one of those simple ideas that are so difficult to practice.”
“Bob was a generational figure within Winona in terms of his philanthropy, his foresight into economic development within our community, and then also a strong supporter of the arts and culture segment within our community.”
“Back in 1967, we were the smallest of an estimated 10,000 fastener sellers in the U.S. By the mid-1990s we had outgrown them all. We had to be doing something different. It wasn't the product, and it wasn't how we distributed the product: It was our belief in people.”
“When you control, you limit what people can do to what you tell them to do. You will get better-than-expected results by telling people what outcomes you expect, and then challenging them to exceed your outcome expectations by using their unique abilities.”
“Success for anybody is probably the ability to bring out the potential in other people. In the case of business, you really have a successful business only if you can bring out the potential of the people that are joining that business with you.”
