Quotes About Executives

Executives and studios really like to have control over their product. They panic or they're not secure enough to trust in the powers of really amazing improv people.

Damn the great executives, the men of measured merriment, damn the men with careful smiles, damn the men that run the shops, oh, damn their measured merriment.

Companies should buy back their shares when they are cheap—not when they are at or near record highs. Unfortunately, it recently has become all too common for companies to repurchase their stock when it is overpriced. There is no more cynical waste of a company's cash—since the real purpose of that maneuver is to enable top executives to reap multimillion-dollar paydays by selling their own stock options in the name of "enhancing shareholder value.

Each quarter, Indian IT firms publish their results, and these are broadcast on CNBC. From the comfort of their boardrooms, executives say how many new employees have been added, how many more Fortune 500 companies have been signed up as clients, how many million-dollar companies were added, and so on.

I would have loved to have been in the room with the ABC executives when they watched David Lynch's 'Mulholland Drive' TV pilot. You know that had to be a long silence after that thing stopped.

Defining, embedding, and living core beliefs set the stage for executives and employees to connect. Through actions that consistently convey who we are and how we act, executives can inspire employees to believe in the organization's values and buy in to its brand.

Executives are there in part to add diversity to board debate through their detailed operational experience. They are not there to act as ciphers of the chief executive.

He was a ravenous reader, leading senior executives in discussion of books like Clayton Christensen's The Innovator's Dilemma, and he had an utter aversion to doing anything conventionally. Employees were instructed to model his fourteen leadership principles, such as customer obsession, high bar for talent, and frugality, and they were trained to consider them daily when making decisions about things like new hires, promotions, and even trivial changes to products.

Amazon executives were going to have to substitute artifice and improvisation for truly comprehensive selection.

Effective strategy planners spread strategy reviews throughout the year rather than squeeze them into a two- or three-month window. This allows senior executives to focus on one issue at a time until they reach a decision or set of decisions.

More than anything else, this disconnect—between the way planning works and the way decision making happens—explains the frustration, if not outright antipathy, most executives feel toward strategic planning.

The process contains serious flaws. First, it's conducted annually, so it doesn't help executives respond swiftly to threats and opportunities (a new competitor, a possible acquisition) that crop up throughout the year. Second

But Welch also thought through another issue before deciding where to concentrate his efforts for the next five years. He asked himself which of the two or three tasks at the top of the list he himself was best suited to undertake. Then he concentrated on that task; the others he delegated. Effective executives try to focus on jobs they'll do especially well. They know that enterprises perform if top management performs—and don't if it doesn't.

The real challenge for executives who want to implement decision quality control is not time or cost. It is the need to build awareness that even highly experienced, superbly competent, and well-intentioned managers are fallible. Organizations need to realize that a disciplined decision-making process, not individual genius, is the key to a sound strategy. And they will have to create a culture of open debate in which such processes can flourish. Originally

Yahoo was Jerry Yang's baby. He did a great job creating the baby. Unfortunately, some of the key executives after the foundation of the company couldn't keep up with the technology innovation of the industry. They thought that Yahoo should become a media company.

I'm reading the way a lot of technology executives have decried 'gatekeepers' and 'traditional media,' and that one of the promises of 'new media' was that it would break the chokehold that old media companies had on public opinion.

In government, our chief executives have been lawyers. The great majority of our cabinets and congresses are and have been men trained in the law. They have provided the leadership and the statecraft and the store of strength when it was needed.

Legal executives often specialise in areas such as conveyancing, family law, probate, and litigation. Training is typically spread over five years of combined study and work.

Corporate executives often buy or sell shares in their companies, and stocks rarely rise or fall significantly when those transactions are reported.

We were in Nashville and the whole place was packed with country music executives. They played all their punk rock—just as loud and fast as they could until they virtually cleared the room until there was nothing left but punks. And then they played country music the rest of the night.

The cozy relationship between chief executives and advertising agencies had unravelled, as other strategic advisers like investment bankers and strategic management consultants jumped to the head of the queue. The

The obsession with quarterly earnings came about because personal compensation was increasingly tied to what happened to the share price. Improving market capitalization became the number one job for senior executives. Success would lead to personal wealth. Sadly

John Patterson, president of National Cash Register, was a fan of Napoleon. Patterson rode horseback with his executives every day at 5 a.m. He demanded that they maintain a little red book to record daily activities, thoughts, ideas, and so on. He ruthlessly fired many an employee who failed to maintain a notebook.

I'm here with Howard Millar and Michael Cawley, our two deputy chief executives. But they're presently making love in the gentleman's toilets, such is their excitement at today's results.