Education and Productivity – The Keys to Success

The Wall Street Journal published yesterday a terrific interview with George David, The CEO of United Technologies. Below are several quotes made by him that I found fascinating:

“What goes on in a big sailboat is a combination of preparation, organization, design, strategy, tactics, rules, teamwork, individual performance and group performance … When you drop a new crew person in, every now and then you may get an elbow in the face. It’s because you and that person don’t know how you’re going to move relative to one another. That’s the same thing in the business; you don’t want an elbow in the face.”

“You can’t walk through life with a trained eye and not see the opportunities for productivity (sitting in traffic, forms at the doctor, waiting for things) … Just look at the difference in personal productivity between people, educated versus not educated. Or people in good, really productive labor environments, versus people who are kind of struggling because they’re in disorganized or ineffective companies … There’s a part of the world that doesn’t believe in the rights of women. Why on earth would you live in a society where half the people are deemed to be nonproductive?”

“Education is definitely the most powerful force in life. Educated people are more thoughtful. They’re more widely read. They’re more alert to change. They’re more confident.”