Quotes About Organization

You have to be able to compartmentalize all that. Your problem is you only have one compartment.

Different subjects and different affairs are arranged in my head as in a cupboard,' he once said. 'When I wish to interrupt one train of thought, I shut that drawer and open another. Do I wish to sleep? I simply close all the drawers, and there I am – asleep.

if your organization uses e-mail, a lot more people know what's going on in your business than did before, and they know it a lot faster than they used to.

Middle managers are the muscle and bone of every sizable organization, no matter how loose or "flattened" the hierarchy, but they are largely ignored despite their immense importance to our society and economy.

the real sign of malorganization is when people spend more than 25 percent of their time in ad hoc mission-oriented meetings.

one of the manager's key tasks is to settle six important questions in advance: •  What decision needs to be made? •  When does it have to be made? • Who will decide? •  Who will need to be consulted prior to making the decision? •  Who will ratify or veto the decision? •  Who will need to be informed of the decision?

The second idea is that the work of a business, of a government bureacracy, of most forms of human activity, is something pursued not by individuals but by teams.

The output of a manager is the output of the organizational units under his or her supervision or influence

Which five would they be? Put another way, which five pieces of information would you want to look at each day, immediately upon arriving at your office?

As a rule of thumb, a manager whose work is largely supervisory should have six to eight subordinates; three or four are too few and ten are too many. This range comes from a guideline that a manager should allocate about a half day per week to each of his subordinates.

we should try to make our managerial work take on the characteristics of a factory, not a job shop. Accordingly, we should do everything we can to prevent little stops and starts in our day as well as interruptions brought on by big emergencies.

Also, if you use the production principle of batching—that is, handling a group of similar chores at one time—many interruptions that come from your subordinates can be accumulated and handled not randomly, but at staff and at one-on-one meetings, the subject of the next chapter. If such meetings are held regularly, people can't protest too much if they're asked to batch questions and problems for scheduled times, instead of interrupting you whenever they want.

the definition of "manager" should be broadened: individual contributors who gather and disseminate know-how and information should also be seen as middle managers, because they exert great power within the organization.

the key definition here is that the output of a manager is a result achieved by a group either under her supervision or under her influence. While the manager's own work is clearly very important, that in itself does not create output. Her organization does.

A real time-saver is using a "hold" file where both the supervisor and subordinate accumulate important but not altogether urgent issues for discussion at the next meeting.

Andy introduces management with this classic equation: A manager's output = the output of his organization + the output of the neighboring organizations under his influence.

Thus, a very important way to increase productivity is to arrange the work flow inside our black box so that it will be characterized by high output per activity, which is to say high-leverage activities.

In other words, one of the manager's key tasks is to settle six important questions in advance: •  What decision needs to be made? •  When does it have to be made? • Who will decide? •  Who will need to be consulted prior to making the decision? •  Who will ratify or veto the decision? •  Who will need to be informed of the decision?

The two basic managerial roles produce two basic kinds of meetings. In the first kind of meeting, called a process-oriented meeting, knowledge is shared and information is exchanged. Such meetings take place on a regularly scheduled basis. The purpose of the second kind of meeting is to solve a specific problem. Meetings of this sort, called mission-oriented, frequently produce a decision. They are ad hoc affairs, not scheduled long in advance, because they usually can't be.

Keep in mind that a meeting called to make a specific decision is hard to keep moving if more than six or seven people attend. Eight people should be the absolute cutoff.

the performance rating of a manager cannot be higher than the one we would accord to his organization!

Much confusion exists between what is strategy and what is tactics. Although the distinction is rarely of practical significance, here's one that might be useful. As you formulate in words what you plan to do, the most abstract and general summary of those actions meaningful to you is your strategy. What you'll do to implement the strategy is your tactics. Frequently, a strategy at one managerial level is the tactical concern of the next higher level.

you need to develop a higher tolerance for disorder. Now, you should still not accept disorder. In fact, you should do your best to drive what's around you to order.

the performance rating of a manager cannot be higher than the one we would accord to his organization! It is very important to assess actual performance, not appearances; real output, not good form.