Most human organizations that fall short of their goals do so not because of stupidity or faulty doctrines, but because of internal decay and rigidification. They grow stiff in the joints. They get in a rut. They go to seed.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Garfield claims organizations fail due to internal stagnation rather than external factors or bad ideas.
- In plain terms
- Organizations die from inside out, not from outside attacks.
- What can you take from it?
- Watch for internal rigidity before blaming external causes.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How do you spot internal decay?
- Is your organization growing stiff?
Another view
It ignores that external shocks can indeed cause collapse without internal decay.
More from James A. Garfield
If the power to do hard work is not a skill, it's the best possible substitute for it.
Permalink to quote #47 Poverty is uncomfortable; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim.
Permalink to quote #49 Ideas control the world.
Permalink to quote #46
Related quotes
Where there is no strife there is decay: The mixture which is not shaken decomposes.
HeraclitusHeraclitus quote #53 Nothing had happened because nothing had changed. Yet the General was rubbish in the end.
Wallace StevensWallace Stevens quote #128 'Management is the gate through which social and economic and political change, indeed change in every direction, is diffused though society.'
Robert McNamaraRobert McNamara quote #1