Management Quotes

Most claims of originality are testimony to ignorance and most claims of magic are testimony to hubris.
— James March

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Never give people unsolicited advice. If they want your opinion, they’ll ask for it. And only those who ask for it and pay for it will value it.
— Bob Bly

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It seems that if the task is tough, Americans take charge. If the talk is tough, we take cover.
— Susan Davidson

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All of business is about values, all of the time. Notwithstanding the ostentatious use of stopwatches, Taylor’s pig iron case was not a description of some aspect of physical reality–how many tons can a worker lift? It was a prescription–how many tons should a worker lift? The real issue at stake in Mayo’s telephone factory was not factual–how can we best establish a sense of teamwork? It was moral—how much of a worker’s sense of identity and well-being does a business have a right to harness for its purposes?
— Matthew Stewart

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Management and Values

The best business schools will tell you that management education is mainly about building skills–one of the most important of which is the ability to think (or what the M.B.A.s call “problem solving”). But do they manage to teach such skills?

What they don’t seem to teach you in business school is that “the five forces” and “the seven Cs” and every other generic framework for problem solving are heuristics: they can lead you to solutions, but they cannot make you think. Case studies may provide an effective way to think business problems through, but the point is rather lost if students come away imagining that you can go home once you’ve put all of your eggs into a two-by-two growth-share matrix.

Next to analysis, communication skills must count among the most important for future masters of the universe. To their credit, business schools do stress these skills, and force their students to engage in make-believe presentations to one another. On the whole, however, management education has been less than a boon for those who value free and meaningful speech. M.B.A.s have taken obfuscatory jargon—otherwise known as bullshit—to a level that would have made even the Scholastics blanch.
— Matthew Stewart

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / MBA Related

The world of management theorists remains exempt from accountability. In my experience, for what it’s worth, consultants monitored the progress of former clients about as diligently as they checked up on ex-spouses (of which there were many). Unless there was some hope of renewing the relationship (or dating a sister company), it was Hasta la vista, baby. And why should they have cared? Consultants’ recommendations have the same semantic properties as campaign promises: it’s almost freakish if they are remembered in the following year.
— Matthew Stewart

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Consulting

f it’s reminiscent of the kind of toothless wisdom offered in self-help literature, that’s because management theory is mostly a subgenre of self-help. Which isn’t to say it’s completely useless. But just as most people are able to lead fulfilling lives without consulting Deepak Chopra, most managers can probably spare themselves an education in management theory.
— Matthew Stewart

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Management

Tthe barriers [to the adoption of a radical new technology within an organization] are both cognitive — ‘We know this won’t work, and we doubt that it will ever make money even if it does’ — and incentive related: ‘You won’t pay me for trying to learn.’ Because cognitive frames and incentives are tightly intertwined in an organization, any attempt to change one must be accompanied by a change in the other.
— Sarah Kaplan, Rebecca Henderson

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Change Management and Organizational Behavior

Many of today’s midcareer workers are well educated and have retained their love of learning. They know that increasing their skills will raise their chances for personal and professional advancement. However, many find themselves too busy for extensive education and training; personal development time comes at the sacrifice of other responsibilities, both on the job and off. And some people, especially those who have reached positions of authority, stop seeking development opportunities because they hesitate to take risks or don’t want to admit that they have things to learn.

Meanwhile, too many organizations foster a silent conspiracy against education: They cut the training and development budget first in lean times. They stand silent when managers discourage employees from seeking training on the grounds that it will interfere with getting the work done. And they fail to require managers to set career development plans for all their employees. As a result, many midcareer workers are overdue for a serious infusion of training—which can include refresher courses, in-depth education to develop new skills, and brief introductions to new ideas or areas of business that expand their perspectives and trigger their interest in learning more.
— Robert Morison, Tamara Erickson, and Ken Dychtwald

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Learning and Training & Development

The clash between principles and pragmatism is one of the hardest tests of a leader’s character. Of course we want our leaders to be both principled and pragmatic. Principles alone qualify men and women to be preachers or saints. Pure pragmatists can open their tool kits and get down to work, but their amorality makes them dangerous. As many leaders know, sometimes the worst conflict is between two strongly held principles. Navigating that can be harder than trying to keep a balance between principles and pragmatism.
— Joseph L. Badaracco, Jr.

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Ethics and Values