284 Management Quotes

What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.

I think it is inevitable that people program poorly. Training will not substantially help matters. We have to learn to live with it.

Directors and writers have a lot of stress as well, because they have people they answer to.

This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an organizing genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish at the same time.

There is no reason at all why there aren't enough people to guard New Orleans and to help stabilise Baghdad.

It's bad policy to speculate on what you'll do if a plan fails when you're trying to make a plan work.

Punctuality is one of the cardinal business virtues: always insist on it in your subordinates.

Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but selection. Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, no comparison, no judgment.

Failure in the management of practical affairs seems to be a qualification for success in the management of public affairs.

Men are basically smart or dumb and lazy or ambitious. The dumb and ambitious ones are dangerous and I get rid of them. The dumb and lazy ones I give mundane duties. The smart ambitious ones I put on my staff. The smart and lazy ones I make my commanders.

There are always times where the place of a commander isn't back with his Major State, but onward with his troops.

My observation is that whenever one person is found adequate to the discharge of a duty... it is worse executed by two persons, and scarcely done at all if three or more are employed therein.

The average man won't really do a day's work unless he is caught and cannot get out of it. There is plenty of work to do if people would do it.

Asking 'who ought to be the boss' is like asking 'who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?' Obviously, the man who can sing tenor.

A star on a movie set is like a time bomb. That bomb has got to be defused so people can approach it without fear.

I wanted to change the rules of engagement, asking for more- from fewer. I was insisting that we had to have only the best people...If you wanted excellence, at a minimum, the ambience had to reflect excellence.

Getting the right people in the right jobs is a lot more important than developing a strategy.

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.

If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it you almost don't have to manage them.

Strong managers who make tough decisions to cut jobs provide the only true job security in today's world. Weak managers are the problem. Weak managers destroy jobs.

Willingness to change is a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total confusion for a while.

No president who performs his duties faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure. If he entrusts the details and smaller matters to subordinates constant errors will occur. I prefer to supervise the whole operations of the government myself rather than entrust the public business to subordinates, and this makes my duties very great.

Beware of Methodologies. They are a great way to bring everyone up to a dismal, but passable, level of performance, but at the same time, they are aggravating to more talented people who chafe at the restrictions that are placed on them.

The task of leadership is not to put greatness into humanity, but to elicit it, for the greatness is already there.

Any large-scale organization must lose some of the merits of its rudimentary beginnings. Quantity will have a coarsening effect on quality.

Don't blame the marketing department. The buck stops with the chief executive.

Good leadership consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people.

The real accomplishment of modern science and technology consists in taking ordinary men, informing them narrowly and deeply and then, through appropriate organization, arranging to have their knowledge combined with that of other specialized but equally ordinary men. This dispenses with the need for genius. The resulting performance, though less inspiring, is far more predictable.

Meetings are a great trap. Soon you find yourself trying to get agreement and then the people who disagree come to think they have a right to be persuaded. However, they are indispensable when you don't want to do anything.

Let a fool be made serviceable according to his folly.

Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny.

That which hits the fan tends to get flung in all directions.

To do a job effectively, one must set priorities. Too many people let their 'in' basket set the priorities. On any given day, unimportant but interesting trivia pass through an office; one must not permit these to monopolize his time. The human tendency is to while away time with unimportant matters that do not require mental effort or energy. Since they can be easily resolved, they give a false sense of accomplishment. The manager must exert self-discipline to ensure that his energy is focused where it is truly needed.

One must permit his people the freedom to seek added work and greater responsibility. In my organization, there are no formal job descriptions or organization charts. Responsibilities are defined in a general way, so that people are not circumscribed. All are permitted to do as they think best and to go to anyone and anywhere for help. Each person is then limited only by his own ability.

As subordinates develop, work should be constantly added so that no one can finish his job. This serves as a prod and a challenge. It brings out their capabilities and frees the manager to assume added responsibilities. As members of the organization become capable of assuming new and more difficult duties, they develop pride in doing the job well. This attitude soon permeates the entire organization.

Require rising standards of adequacy.

Require adherence to the concept of total responsibility.

Administration is, or ought to be, a necessary overhead to aid production, and should at all times be kept as low as possible.

More and more of the flow was diverted from production into the political mechanism. Whatever elements in motion compose a stream of energy, enough must go through to complete the circuit and renew production. Water running in an aqueduct to turn a millwheel is a stream of energy; or electricity going through insulated wires; or goods in process from raw materials to finished product and conveyed by a system of transport. If the water channel is pierced with many small openings en route; or electricity taken off by more and more outlets; or the goods expropiated piecemeal at each stage of the process, finally not enough will go through for maintenance of the system. In the energy system comprised in an exchange of goods, the producers and processors have to get back enough to enable them to keep on producing and working up the raw materials and to provide transport...

I enjoy challenging a person's ideas. No one loves a good and passionately fought argument more than I do. This isn't about being tough-minded and straightforward. That's the job. But so is sensing when to hug and when to kick. Of course, arrogant people who refuse to learn from their mistakes have to go. If we're managing good people who are clearly eating themselves up over an error, our job is to help them through it. That doesn't mean you have to take it easy on your top performers.

In GE every day, there's an informal, unspoken personnel review-in the lunchroom, the hallways, and in every business meeting. That intense people focus-testing everyone in a myriad of environments-defines managing at GE. In the end, that's what GE is. We build great people, who then build great products and services.

Where self-interest is suppressed, it is replaced by a burdensome system of bureaucratic control that dries up the wellspring of initiative and creativity.

[O]ur elite is primarily and increasingly managerial. A managerial elite manages. A crisis, unfortunately, requires thought. Thought is not a management function.

Because the managerial elites are now so large and have such a dominant effect on our educational system, we are actually teaching most people to manage, not to think. Not only do we not reward thought, we punish it as unprofessional.

My boss is like, if you took Willy Wonka, and mixed him with Hitler. He's got like, he's crazy like Willie Wonka and he's psycho like Hitler. But he doesn't have a mustache.

You need one of those slave-driving old studio bosses if you ask me, not a sensitive graduate who went into movies because he liked the clouds in Antonioni and then turned himself into a nouvelle vague Deutscher all hot for Truthspiel.

'It requires commitment, vision and will. Differences of ethnicity and multi-culturalism have to be managed and accommodated. It is a difficult balancing act, which must take account of the interests of all communities.'

Sorry. My testing organization is either too small, or too large, depending on how you look at it. :-)

This has been planned for some time. I guess we'll just have to find someone with an exceptionally round tuit.

There is a very ancient rule of thumb that states, people tend to get promoted to the level of their incompetence.

Executives who get there and stay suggest solutions when they present the problems.

Every Prime Minister needs a Willie.

She was a tigress surrounded by hamsters.

I am one of those mayors whose management style is to allow free and unlimited debate, to a point.

In the early days of the DCC I preferred to let the proponents do their thing and then see how it all worked out in the end. Now we are pretty close to the end.

Spaceship earth is still operated by railway conductors, just as NASA is managed by men with Newtonian goals.

Frank [Arnesen] asked me first to be the head coach, and then he said 'yeah, well we need a big name' so they get another fellow in, and that was ok with me because I knew I only had to wait 'til January.

You remember that book called All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten? ... Well that's very much true. I find a lot in common in the way I manage things and the way she manages three-year olds. We humans are the same when we are three years old and when we are 50!

I compared some passages of articles of [Robert McNamara] in the late 1960s, speeches, on management and the necessity of management, how a well-managed society controlled from above was the ultimate in freedom. The reason is if you have really good management and everything's under control and people are told what to do, under those conditions, he said, man can maximize his potential. I just compared that with standard Leninist views on vanguard parties, which are about the same. About the only difference is that McNamara brought God in, and I suppose Lenin didn't bring God in. He brought Marx in.

It is, of course, merely a truism to say that war, like other social or political evils, is the outcome of the bad management of human society, which is, in its turn, due to certain errors or deficiencies. But our task is to discern the sort of error or deficiency.

We have to strike a delicate balance. Isolate him enough that he remains creative -otherwise he'll adopt the system here and well lose him. At the same time, we need to make sure he keeps a strong ability to lead.

'To the Egress' (a deceptive sign used to reduce crowding)

I've seen occasional articles about how to manage programmers. Really there should be two articles: one about what to do if you are yourself a programmer, and one about what to do if you're not. And the second could probably be condensed into two words: give up.

'...the importance of leadership and what it consists of: not lecturing and posturing and demanding, but demonstrating that your friends will be protected and taken care of, that your enemies will be punished, and that those who refuse to support you will regret having done so.' [2]

That people even in well paid jobs choose ever earlier retirement is a severe indictment of our organizations -- not just business, but government service, the universities. These people don't find their jobs interesting. -- The Shape of Things to Come: An Interview with Peter F. Drucker Leader to Leader, No. 1 (Summer 1996)

I would hope that American managers--indeed, managers worldwide--continue to appreciate what I have been saying almost from day one: that management is so much more than exercising rank and privilege, that it is much more than 'making deals.' Management affects people and their lives. -- Managing in a Time of Great Change (1995)

A manager's task is to make the strengths of people effective and their weakness irrelevant--and that applies fully as much to the manager's boss as it applies to the manager's subordinates. -- Managing for the Future: The 1990's and Beyond (1992)

The subordinate's job is not to reform or reeducate the boss, not to make him conform to what the business schools or the management book say bosses should be like. It is to enable a particular boss to perform as a unique individual. -- Managing for the Future: The 1990's and Beyond (1992)

Keep the boss aware. Bosses, after all, are held responsible by their own bosses for the performance of their subordinates. They must be able to say: 'I know what Anne [or John] is trying to do.' -- Managing for the Future: The 1990's and Beyond (1992)

Never underrate the boss! The boss may look illiterate. He may look stupid. But there is no risk at all in overrating a boss. If you underrate him he will bitterly resent it or impute to you the deficiency in brains and knowledge you imputed to him. -- Managing for the Future: The 1990's and Beyond (1992)

Once a year ask the boss, 'What do I or my people do that helps you to do your job?' and 'What do I or my people do that hampers you?' -- Managing for the Future: The 1990's and Beyond (1992)

Ideas are somewhat like babies--they are born small, immature, and shapeless. They are promise rather than fulfillment. In the innovative company executives do not say, 'This is a damn-fool idea.' Instead they ask, 'What would be needed to make this embryonic, half-baked, foolish idea into something that makes sense, that is an opportunity for us?' -- The Frontiers of Management (1986)

All economic activity is by definition 'high risk.' And defending yesterday--that is, not innovating--is far more risky than making tomorrow. -- Innovations and Entrepreneurship (1985)

Morale in an organization does not mean that 'people get along together'; the test is performance not conformance. -- The Effective Executive (1966)

An organization is 'sick' -- when promotion becomes more important to its people than accomplishment of their job -- when it is more concerned with avoiding mistakes than with taking risks -- and with counteracting the weaknesses of its members than with building on their strength -- and when good human relations become more important than performance and achievement. ...The moment people talk of 'implementing' instead of 'doing,' and of 'finalizing' instead of 'finishing,' the organization is already running a fever. Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New 'Post-Modern' World (1959)

A man should never be appointed into a managerial position if his vision focuses on people's weaknesses rather than on their strengths. -- The Practice of Management (1954)

It does not follow from the separation of planning and doing in the analysis of work that the planner and the doer should be two different people. It does not follow that the industrial world should be divided into two classes of people: a few who decide what is to be done, design the job, set the pace, rhythm and motions, and order others about; and the many who do what and as they are told. -- The Practice of Management (1954)

--A manager sets objectives--A manager organizes--A manager motivates and communicates--A manager, by establishing yardsticks, measures--A manager develops people. The Practice of Management (1954)

What the worker needs is to see the plant as if he were a manager. Only thus can he see his part, from his part he can reach the whole. This 'seeing' is not a matter of information, training courses, conducted plant tours, or similar devices. What is needed is the actual experience of the whole in and through the individual's work. -- The New Society (1950)

In the modern corporation the decisive power, that of the managers, is derived from no one but the managers themselves controlled by nobody and nothing and responsible to no one. It is in the most literal sense unfounded, unjustified, uncontrolled and irresponsible power. -- The Future of Industrial Man (1942)

At least once every five years every form should be put on trial for its life.

If only for esthetic reasons, I am not overfond of the term 'Bottom-Up Management.'

[Management is] an integrating discipline of human values and conduct, of social order and intellectual inquiry, [a discipline that] feeds off economics, psychology, mathematics, political theory, history, and philosophy. In short, management is a liberal art...

What is the point of spending such huge sums to bring a 200-lb.-body downtown when all you want of it is its eight-and-a-half pound brain?

People respond to responsibility.

I think of him as well intentioned, poorly informed, high status idiot.

Keep 'em busy. That was one of the three rules of being chief that old Grimm had passed on to him. Act confidently, never say 'I don't know,' and when all else fails, keep 'em busy.

Only a small part of the interior of the memex is devoted to storage, the rest to mechanism. Yet if the user inserted 5000 pages of material a day it would take him hundreds of years to fill the repository, so he can be profligate and enter material freely.

All my life, which has now lasted something under one hundred years, I have observed managers in action: in government, in universities, , and in industry, and I have puzzled over what made them tick. I am far form the end of that puzzle, for no man can ever fully understand another, even a close friend. But can we probe a bit toward the essence of the good, the great, managers.

'DAMMIT! Austin, come back and give me a stunner!'

'Which way did the Big Show Go?'

'It was me; It was me dad that hired Stone Cold back! It was me!'