Management Quotes

If a few rotten apples can spoil the barrel, I think we have to look at the nature of the barrel, not just the apples. Organizational design, structure, and culture do play a role and almost always have in corporate scandals. Companies that get into trouble often do so because of minimal internal connections between many parts of the organization. With deficient information and knowledge, you can’t put all the pieces together or understand when something might be going wrong.
— Rosabeth Moss Kanter

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Corporate Governance and Organizational Behavior

Managers are not good at managing change. Why? Because most managers are stewards and not leaders. They tend towards security, stability and predictability.
— The Dean (David West?)

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Change Management and Leadership

People don’t do what you expect but what you inspect.
— Lou Gerstner

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Measurement and Organizational Behavior

There are two reasons people behave the way they do–-the reason they tell you and the real reason.
— Winston Churchill

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Personality / Behavior

There is no shortage of black leaders - they are in every field, every walk of life. Our only shortage is in the perception that fails to recognize the black leaders in our companies and communities.
— Earl Graves (Founder and publisher of Black Enterp

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Diversity and Leadership

We’ve heard that old refrain before: Our schools would be better if only we had better teachers, and government would be better if only there were more competent civil servants. In fact, such conventional wisdom is more often than not a rationalization for poor leadership. Because the top 10 percent of any group is a finite number, it is incumbent on leaders to create conditions that produce extraordinary results from ordinary people. From that perspective, a company that creates talent and uses it well is better led than one that expends all its energy on the futile task of hiring only great people.
— Bruce A. Pasternack

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Human Resources and Leadership

Facilitators are improvisers. They are instruments of the other people in the room. However…often facilitation is too conversation-driven, and occurs without shared space, without the capture and feedback mechanisms to amplify the effectiveness of the facilitation. But, facilitation is not enough for collaboration; you need to have shared spaces. You need to have media where the ideas can be captured and represented and those representations can be modified and played with.
— Michael Schrage

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Teamwork

Although the question ‘Does corporate citizenship pay?’ is technically right, it is misleading in practice. Rephrasing the core question as ‘In what ways does corporate citizenship contribute to achieving the core business strategy?’ is far preferable.
— Simon Zadek, CEO of AccountAbility

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Social Responsibility

The fundamental distinction between a platform or line extension product and a breakthrough product is that the latter establishes a need by its mere existence, or establishes an entirely new product category.
— Eric Mankin

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Innovation

People today…have tried all the other management systems. They are all good in their way but they’re all intended for different people at different levels; once they can achieve the ‘match’, they make all the sense in the world.
— Don Beck

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Management