Quotes About Management

If the staff lacks policy guidance against which to test decisions, their decisions will be random.

Don't necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.

Your performance depends on your people. Select the best, train them and back them. When errors occur, give sharper guidance. If errors persist or if the fit feels wrong, help them move on. The country cannot afford amateur hour in the White House.

I have made the tough decisions, always with an eye toward the bottom line. Perhaps it's time America was run like a business.

Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes. —RUSSELL ACKOFF,

Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes.... Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes. -RUSSELL ACKOFF,' operations theorist

we sometimes miss seeing that we can fill a bathtub not only by increasing the inflow rate, but also by decreasing the outflow rate.

Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes.

Most individual and institutional decisions are designed to regulate the levels in stocks.

Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes. . . . Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes. —RUSSELL ACKOFF,

Hierarchies are brilliant systems inventions, not only because they give a system stability and resilience, but also because they reduce the amount of information that any part of the system has to keep track of.

The tragedy of the commons arises from missing (or too long delayed) feedback from the resource to the growth of the users of that resource.

And Lincoln, as would be evidenced throughout his presidency, was a master of timing.

I was in charge. Of it all. All the time. For ever.

Managers are always saying they want their people to think more, yet they do not always encourage them to do that. That is because most managers think they have to have all the answers, rather than most of the questions. If you consistently tell people what to do, you foster the telling culture most organizations display and you stifle their thinking habits.

Accomplishing the impossible means only the boss will add it to your regular duties.

One of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them: It is a well known fact, that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. Anyone who is capable of getting themselves into a position of power should on no account be allowed to do the job. Another problem with governing people is people.

The major problem— one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

Additional manpower doesn't always speed things up," said Kelly. "Yes, perspiration is important. But it's also true that nine women can't have a baby in a month.

gruppenfuhrer, the equivalent of a major general,

It is probable that one day we shall begin to draw organization charts as a series of linked groups rather than as a hierarchical structure of individual "reporting" relationships. These

Delegation means that he will concern himself with the results of their activities and not with the details of their day-to-day performance. This requires a degree of confidence in them which enables him to accept certain risks. Unless he takes these risks there will be no delegation.

The requirement that authority must equal responsibility is not only impossible to fulfill; it is logically unnecessary except within a system which makes authority the exclusive means of influence. The

In the 1990s, Elinor Ostrom, the American political scientist most responsible for reviving serious thought about commons, studies what specifically makes a commons successful. She concluded that a commons must have an evolving set of rules about access and usage and that it must have a way of punishing transgressions. It must also respect the particular character of the resource being managed and the people who have worked with that resource the longest.