Management Quotes

Business, at least as it is taught in our business schools and most training programs, is about understanding and knowledge.

These are, of course, both very important. However, managing is a skill, and (as it transpires) has nothing to do with rationality, logic, IQ, or intelligence. Whether you can manage is a simple question of whether or not you can influence individuals or organizations to accomplish something. It’s about influencing people, singly, in groups, or in hordes.

No amount of understanding, knowledge or intelligence will help if you are not able to interact with people and get the response you desire. I know a lot about management from my education. That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m any good at doing it.
— David Maister

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Management and Miscellaneous

In a model of utility, a person’s identity describes gains and losses in utility from behaviour that conforms or departs from the norms for particular social categories in particular situations.This concept of utility is a break with traditional economics, where utility functions are not situation-dependent, but fixed.

Identity is useful to economists because it suggests a natural way in which behaviour can vary within a population. Identity is also useful because it gives us a way to think about how behavior should vary across types.

Economists have recently adapted from psychology the idea that utility depends upon how a situation is framed. Identity describes one special way in which people frame their situation.
— George Akerlof, Rachel Kranton

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Economics and Organizational Behavior

People respond almost too well to monetary incentives. That is, ‘firms get what they pay for’, but since these schemes cannot be targeted well, what firms get is often not what they want.

If an organization is going to function well, it should not rely solely on monetary compensation schemes. The ability of organizations to place workers into jobs with which they identify and the creation of such identities are central to what makes organizations work. Research shows that production is enhanced when organizations hire workers who share the organization’s mission, and that an employee who identifies himself as ‘an insider’ in an organization needs little monetary inducement to perform his job well.
— George Akerlof, Rachel Kranton

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Incentives and Organizational Behavior

Russell Hochschild shows that for many professionals, “home” and “work” have reversed roles. Home is the source of stress and guilt, while work has become the “haven in a heartless world”–the place where successful professionals get strokes, admiration, and respect.
— Sylvia Ann Hewlett and Carolyn Buck Luce

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Career and Organizational Behavior

Motivational speeches are about making people feel good about themselves and enthusiastic about where they can go. But in my experience, it doesn’t work to paint a rosy picture and say “Doesn’t it look great over there?” and expect everyone to drop what they’re doing and go in that direction. What I do is, instead of trying to make people feel good about where they could go, I make them uncomfortable with where they are.
— Larry Winget

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Motivation and Organizational Behavior

A firm can adopt one of two mind-sets: It can apply an operational mind-set, approaching work as a routinized endeavor amenable to a standardized set of procedures and supported by detailed budgets and schedules. Alternatively, an organization can adopt an experimental mind-set—approaching work much like a research and development effort in which testing, learning, and adaptation take precedence over standardization. In such an environment, much more exploratory behavior occurs, and people remain mindful of the imprecise state of technical knowledge. Firms get into trouble when they apply the wrong mind-set to an organization.
— Michael A. Roberto, Richard M.J. Bohmer, and Amy C. Edmondson

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Lazy orthodoxies can allow new entrants to thrive in niches that seem full of capable incumbents.
— Jeff Citron

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Competition and Opportunity

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.
— Robert Frost

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Attitude and Opportunity

A ship in harbor is safe — but that is not what ships are built for.
— John A. Shedd

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The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.
— Albert Schweitzer

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