Quotes About Management

By putting your stocks into categories you'll have a better idea of what to expect from them.

When a change management fails, leadership change is brought in. A leadership change will always bring in change management

Chris Argyris criticized "good communication that blocks learning," arguing that formal communication mechanisms like focus groups and organizational surveys in effect give employees mechanisms for letting management know what they think without taking any responsibility for problems and their role in doing something about them. These mechanisms fail because "they do not get people to reflect on their own work and behavior. They do not encourage individual accountability.

alignment is the necessary condition before empowering the individual will empower the whole team. Empowering the individual when there is a relatively low level of alignment worsens the chaos and makes managing the team even more difficult:

If managers focus only on short-term results, they are often justified in continuing to intervene to sustain results.

To empower people in an unaligned organization can be counterproductive.

To empower people in an unaligned organization can be counterproductive. If people do not share a common vision, and do not share common mental models about the business reality within which they operate, empowering people will only increase organizational stress and the burden of management to maintain coherence and direction.

I would suggest that the fundamental "information problem" faced by managers is not too little information but too much information. What we most need are ways to know what is important and what is not important, what variables to focus on and which to pay less attention to—and we need ways to do this that can help groups or teams develop shared understanding.

most of the problems faced by humankind concerns [concerned] our inability to grasp and manage the increasingly complex systems of our world.

the essence of mastering systems thinking as a management discipline lies in seeing patterns where others see only events and forces to react to. Yet few are trained to see detail and dynamic complexity.

a company.' 'You're losing me, Gerry.' 'High finance and corporate

Georgina are our two consultation advisers, counsellors, then there's Dr Alex Lukas, the medical director, and Nurse Louise Griffiths.' 'What's Julian Harwood's role?' 'Mr Harwood? He's managing director of the whole group. But we never see him. I mean, he

As education and creativity researcher and author Sir Ken Robinson puts it, "We are educating people out of their creativity." Another major factor is that, for years, organizational management has been developing methods for increasing productivity and minimizing risk and errors that tend to stifle creative experimentation.

Harvard Business Review that he said reminded him of me. The article—"Parables of Leadership" by W. Chan Kim and Renée A. Mauborgne—was composed of a series of ancient parables that focused on what the authors called "the unseen space of leadership.

In their groundbreaking book, Tribal Leadership, management consultants Dave Logan, John King, and Halee Fischer-Wright lay out the five stages of tribal development, which they formulated after conducting extensive research on small to midsize organizations.

I learned to dial back my ego and distribute power as widely as possible without surrendering final authority. Paradoxically, this approach strengthened my effectiveness because it freed me to focus on my job as keeper of the team's vision.

That McCarthy, he thought, is a damn good shop foreman. He has the knack of needling a man, getting him to put out his best efforts, to do his utmost in spite of himself. He's a natural leader; he almost inspired me, for a moment, there.

For discipline is imposed not just on oneself but on those in one's orbit.

General Bruce Clarke's Guidelines for the Leader and the Commander

It is important to note that while goods are consumed, services are experienced. The professional service provider is (or should be) as much in the business of managing the client's experience with respect to professional services as in the business of executing technical tasks. Much

Warlord firms succeed when management keeps the big hitters happy and productive. The past and the future are not often items high on the agenda. Consequently, over time, the performance of extreme warlord firms often swings through peaks and valleys. Much management energy is expended in modulating the politically charged environment.

And as in any line of business, a succeeding CEO who couldn't make a bygone cock-up look like an opportunity missed wasn't fit for management, and should take her retirement package, her annual bonus, her golden handshake and her non-disclosure kickback and tiptoe from the boardroom in disgrace.

Without slack there is no tactical agility in the business.

Kanban, while Japanese, is less metaphorical than Drum-Buffer-Rope.