Quotes About Management

Having prospered as a merchant, Jesse was now worth $100,000—equivalent to nearly $3 million today—and employed about fifty people. When he reached sixty in 1854, he had begun to withdraw from active management of his business interests. His holdings included several tanneries near Portsmouth, Ohio, and leather goods stores in Wisconsin, Iowa, and Galena, Illinois.

Taking for granted the growth of his empire, he hired talented people as found, not as needed.

Things seldom happened accidentally to George Washington, but he managed them with such consummate skill that they often seemed to happen accidentally. By 1775 he had a fine sense of power—how to gain it, how to keep it, how to wield it.

The next day, Cortelyou put $25 million in government funds at Pierpont's disposal

Had she stayed in business, she would have been bankrupt within a few years.

Since he never owned more than a third of his company, he needed the cooperation of other people.

Having created an empire of unfathomable complexity, he was smart enough to see that he had to submerge his identity in the organization.

Orders to handle commodity trades poured in almost faster than he could handle them.

Has anyone given you the law of these offices? No? It is this: nobody does anything if he can get anybody else to do it.… As soon as you can, get some one whom you can rely on, train him in the work, sit down, cock up your heels, and think out some way for the Standard Oil to make some money.

For many years, Rockefeller had tried to free himself from details and applauded the committee system as relegating him to a fifth wheel.

He had long bewailed his inability to delegate authority—"It is my nature and I cannot help it

Gates himself invested in several of the companies he managed for Rockefeller, and in 1902 he cashed in a tidy $500,000 profit.

Every company that failed and was reorganized by a bank ended up the bank's captive client.

he would reorganize bankrupt roads and transfer control to himself.

You see, this scheme is bound to work. It means an absolute control by us of the oil business.

As at Standard Oil, Rockefeller insisted upon keeping a cash balance that never dipped below $10 million.

I never felt the need of scientific knowledge, have never felt it. A young man who wants to succeed in business does not require chemistry or physics. He can always hire scientists.

While keeping apart from the management of the RIMR and the GEB, Rockefeller remained more involved with the University of Chicago.

As Standard Oil's leading figure, he was the only person who didn't have any direct operational responsibility.

Rockefeller reviewed every bill that arrived at home and often patrolled the hallways, turning off gaslights.

Instead, statesmanlike, he applied himself to general policy and monitored the performance of lieutenants, who sent him copious reports about their activities

Harper was strictly forbidden from enlarging existing departments or adding new ones.

They leave no doubt that he was the brains of the operation, directing activities he professed to deplore and setting the tone for his subordinates.

His life was a case study in the profitable use of time.