Management Quotes

One of the basics of a good system of innovation is diversity. In some ways, the stronger the culture (national, institutional, generational, or other), the less likely it is to harbor innovative thinking. Common and deep-seated beliefs, widespread norms, and behavior and performance standards are enemies of new ideas. Any society that prides itself on being harmonious and homogeneous is very unlikely to catalyze idiosyncratic thinking. Suppression of innovation need not be overt. It can be simply a matter of people’s walking around in tacit agreement and full comfort with the status quo.
— Nicholas Negroponte

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Culture and Innovation

The best case is to never file bankruptcy; the next best is to file promptly; and the worst is to mess around and file at the last possible moment, because by then you will be in very deep water.

…I don’t do due diligence. The only thing you find out is that things are worse than people think—and, if they’re worse, they need me more. All I need to know is it’s a basket case. The fireman doesn’t ask how hot the fire is; he just jumps on the truck.
— Robert “Steve” Miller Jr. (turnaround specialist)

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The problem with the way we teach is that if a student makes a comment in class that isn’t grounded in the data in the case, the instructor is trained to crucify her right on the spot. And so we exalt the virtues of data-driven decision making. And then many of the students go to work for consulting firms where they carry data-driven analytical decision making to an nth degree. Thus, in many ways, the whole teaching model condemns managers to act after the game is over. Maybe you can’t teach intuition, but maybe you can.
— Clayton M. Christensen

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Decision and Innovation

Never ignore a coincidence. Ever. It is a message that breaks through the same old patterns and often is a golden opportunity. You just need to figure out what kind. The important part is letting go of the idea of how things should be and trusting that you don’t know the big picture.

…I use coincidences as a way of thinking creatively…The universe is radically ambiguous. We give meaning to everything…My point is that you can take a coincidence and interpret it with meaning. This starts a process of associations that you normally wouldn’t have been aware of.
— Deepak Chopra

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Opportunity and Perception

This is the crux of the fair-value debate: each side agrees both qualities are important, but fair-value advocates emphasize relevance, while historical-cost advocates place greater weight on reliability.
— Tim Reason

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Accounting and Finance

Accounting has historically not defined income as change in wealth, or change in net worth or value. It has defined it by thousands and thousands of conventions that measure allocations of historical costs.

…if accounting prompts strange behavior solely because of the accounting, that’s not a good answer.
— Robert H. Herz

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Accounting and Finance

Putting a slow-growth company on the track to double-digit growth requires senior executives to reckon with new ideas about serving customers and deploying assets. It also requires them to set aside old ideas about growth that no longer apply. One such outmoded idea is the notion that new growth invariably comes at the expense of the core business. In fact, just the opposite is true: A company that wants to develop a new-growth strategy must start by reinforcing its core business. After all, it’s your core business that creates access to higher-order needs. If you don’t have a competitive product to sell, you have no related needs to serve.
— Adrian Slywotsky and Richard Wise

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Management and Strategy

The man who does not make mistakes is unlikely to make anything.
— English proverb

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Once you have your own market space and imitators follow, you go into classical competitive strategy mode, where you focus on milking it, getting your best market share, blocking other imitations and dramatically ramping up and refining your offering. But, as other companies’ strategies converge on your market, history shows you need to create new market space again and break away.
— Renée Mauborgne

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Innovation and Strategy

The war analogy we have used for strategy so far is the wrong one: It is based on an assumption that there’s only so much territory that exists. So it’s been about dividing up that territory. There’s been a winner and a loser. But our research shows it’s not a zero-sum game. You can create new land. Business history shows us that, contrary to perceived wisdom, the number of market spaces that can be created is infinite.
— Renée Mauborgne

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Strategy