Quotes About Management

I read a lot of history, biographies, science, and novels,' he says, ushering a reporter out the door with a hint of relief. 'I do not read management or economics.' (from an interview in the Christian Science Monitor , July 26, 1993)

The most important thing about priorities and posteriorities is not intelligent analysis but courage.

No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.

Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.

Working on the right things is what makes knowledge work effective.

If there is any one "secret" of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time.

Effective executives know that their subordinates are paid to perform and not to please their superiors.

A man should never be appointed to a managerial position if his vision focuses on people's weaknesses rather than on their strengths. The man who always knows exactly what people cannot do, but never sees anything they can do, will undermine the spirit of his organization.

Meetings are by definition a concession to deficient organization For one either meets or one works. One cannot do both at the same time.

Every enterprise requires commitment to common goals and shared values. Without such commitment there is no enterprise; there is only a mob. The enterprise must have simple, clear, and unifying objectives. The mission of the organization has to be clear enough and big enough to provide common vision. The goals that embody it have to be clear, public, and constantly reaffirmed. Management's first job is to think through, set, and exemplify those objectives, values, and goals. Management

Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

plan, organize, integrate, motivate, and measure.

A well-managed factory is boring. Nothing exciting happens in it because the crises have been anticipated and have been converted into routine.

To be sure, the fundamental task of management remains the same: to make people capable of joint performance through common goals, common values, the right structure, and the training and development they need to perform and to respond to change.

Staffing the opportunities instead of the problems not only creates the most effective organization, it also creates enthusiasm and dedication.

The effective executive, therefore, asks: "What can my boss do really well?" "What has he done really well?" "What does he need to know to use his strength?" "What does he need to get from me to perform?" He does not worry too much over what the boss cannot do.

Work is a process, and any process needs to be controlled. To make work productive, therefore, requires building the appropriate controls into the process of work.

Effective executives do not race. They set an easy pace but keep going steadily.

The job is, however, not to set priorities. That is easy. Everybody can do it. The reason why so few executives concentrate is the difficulty of setting "posteriorities"—that is, deciding what tasks not to tackle—and of sticking to the decision.

Managers are action-focused; they are not philosophers and should not be.

A crisis that recurs a second time is a crisis that must not occur again.

Direct results always come first. In the care and feeding of an organization, they play the role calories play in the nutrition of the human body.

The man who focuses on efforts and who stresses his downward authority is a subordinate no matter how exalted his title and rank. But the man who focuses on contribution and who takes responsibility for results, no matter how junior, is in the most literal sense of the phrase, "top management." He holds himself accountable for the performance of the whole.

Mutual understanding can never be attained by "communications down," can never be created by talking. It can result only from "communications up." It requires both the superior's willingness to listen and a tool especially designed to make lower managers heard.