Quotes About Management

Process standardization from on high is disempowerment. It is a direct result of fearful management, allergic to failure.

In a healthy knowledge-worker organization, people don't waste a lot of time anyway, since wasted time is an affront to them as much as it is to their management. They are more likely to be frustrated by wasted time than enjoy it.

The best managers use pressure only rarely and never over extended periods.

And the management team is not really a team. A team is a group of people who have joint responsibility for—and joint ownership of—one or more work products. People who own nothing in common may be called a team, but they aren't. This is not to say that companies never form real management teams, only that they do so rarely. Most of what are called management teams are a mockery of the team concept.

The meeting wasn't really necessary to convey status; there are many less wasteful ways to do that. The need that was being served was not the boss's need for information, but for reassurance.

It's not uncommon to see real teams as a phenomenon of only the bottom level of the hierarchy.

There is probably no job on earth for which an ability to believe six impossible things before breakfast is more of a requirement than software project management.

The missed schedule indicts the planners, not the workers. Even if the workers are utterly incompetent, a plan that takes careful note of their inadequacies can help to minimize the damage. A plan that takes no account of realities is not just useless but dangerous.

The most obvious defensive management ploys are prescriptive Methodologies ("My people are too dumb to build systems without them" ) and technical interference by the manager. Both are doomed to fail in the long run.

Good management is the lifeblood of the healthy corporate body. Getting rid of it to save cost is like losing weight by giving blood.

You may be able to kick people to make them active, but not to make them creative, inventive, and thoughtful.

Amateurs think about tactics, but professionals think about logistics.

FROM THE EARTH COME THE MATERIALS, read the huge letters Teague inscribed on the wall behind the display, TO BE TRANSFORMED FOR HUMAN SERVICE BY FORD MEN, MANAGEMENT AND MACHINES.

The most skillful teachers know how to tolerate the ambiguity of experimentation. They also know when to step back and pretend they're invisible. That's why, whenever I observe in a classroom, I like to measure the ratio of "teacher talk" to "student talk." When the ratio tips toward the students, it often means kids are testing their critical thinking skills. A noisier classroom is much harder to manage, but often more productive.

All great enterprises are about logistics. Not genius or inspiration or flights of imagination, skill or cunning, but logistics.

Neglect of what is genuinely human is the major reason why so many people in American business right now feel more victimized than helped by the latest management techniques and companywide processes for improvement.

Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.

Stop being conned by the old mantra that says, 'Leaders are cool, managers are dweebs.' Instead, follow the Peters Principle: Leaders are cool. Managers are cool too!

Gut feelings help us filter the world, and what is taste, really, but a kind of cognitive mechanism for managing sensory overload? But

If you have ever worked in an office, then you have probably experienced a particular form of bad management displayed by bosses who seem unaware of their limitations and are clearly and unjustifiably pleased with themselves. They are overconfident, abrasive, and very much in awe of themselves, particularly in light of their actual talents. They are their own biggest fans by some distance.

This book explores a central question: what if these two observations - that most leaders are bad and that most leaders are male - are casually linked?

Managing is like holding a dove in your hand. Squeeze too hard and you kill it, not hard enough and it flies away.

I believe that managing is like holding a dove in your hand. If you hold it too tightly, you kill it, but if you hold it too loosely, you lose it.

If you show up late [for anger management], you don't get credit for the class, which made that car ride even more of a test of your temper. Being late was great-you could leave if you wanted to, but that wasn't going to help you at all. I was late a few times and I always stayed, hoping to get credit for good behavior. I never did, and that made me really fucking angry. Thank God I was learning how to deal with that.