Management Quotes

A winning formula is each person’s distinctive way of making a difference. Winning formulas have two essential components: what you pay attention to and what you do about it. Some people focus on the unexpressed needs of key players and become the “go-to guy” for solving problems. Others concentrate on what’s missing or flawed in an endeavor and act as the watchdogs for errors or potential train wrecks in their organizations. Still others look for the possibilities in a situation—the new idea or the biggest prize to be pursued—and establish themselves as persuasive advocates for new directions. Some ask themselves, “What’s the goal here?” and then mobilize others to achieve desired outcomes. And so forth. The variations are practically infinite.

A winning formula that works well on the way up can rapidly become less and less useful as one approaches the summit. By that time, it is automatic and subconscious, leading the unwary to do more of the same at a stage when enthusiasm for “the same” is waning.
— George D. Parsons, Richard T. Pascale

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Leadership and Personal Development

If you are not prepared to resign or be fired for what you believe in, then you are not a worker, let alone a professional. You are a slave.
— Howard Gardner

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Miscellaneous and Values

It is not only for what we do that we are held responsible but for what we do not do.
— Jean-Baptiste Molière

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Accountability and Leadership

Ideally, business leaders ought to have three types of counselors who are prepared to speak truth to their power. First, they need a trusted adviser within the organization. Second, they need the counsel of someone completely outside the organization, preferably an old friend who is a peer. Third, they need a genuinely independent board.
— Howard Gardner

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Corporate Governance and Management

Business is not—nor has it ever been—a profession. Professions develop over long periods of time and gradually establish a set of control mechanisms and sanctions for those who violate the code. True professionals, from doctors and lawyers to engineers and architects, undergo extensive training and earn a license. If they do not act according to recognized standards, they can be expelled from their professional guild…But business lacks this model; you don’t need a license to practice.
— Howard Gardner

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Miscellaneous

When everything that matters can be bought and sold, when commitments can be broken because they are no longer to our advantage, when shopping becomes salvation and advertising slogans become our litany, when our worth is measured by how much we earn and spend, then the market is destroying the very virtues on which in the long run it depends.
— Jonathan Sacks

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Capitalism and Economics

It’s important to clarify the distinction between the respectful and the ethical mind, because we assume that one who is respectful is ethical and vice versa. I think you can be respectful without understanding why. But ethical conceptions and behaviors demand a certain capacity to go beyond your own experience as an individual person.
— Howard Gardner

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Ethics

In thinking of the mind as a set of cognitive capacities, it helps to distinguish the ethical mind from the other four minds that we particularly need to cultivate if we are to thrive as individuals, as a community, and as the human race. The first of these, the disciplined mind, is what we gain through applying ourselves in a disciplined way in school. Over time, and with sufficient training, we gain expertise in one or more fields: We become experts in project management, accounting, music, dentistry, and so forth. A second kind of mind is the synthesizing mind, which can survey a wide range of sources, decide what is important and worth paying attention to, and weave this information together in a coherent fashion for oneself and others. A third mind, the creating mind, casts about for new ideas and practices, innovates, takes chances, discovers. While each of these minds has long been valuable, all of them are essential in an era when we are deluged by information and when anything that can be automated will be.

Yet another kind of mind, less purely cognitive in flavor than the first three, is the respectful mind: the kind of open mind that tries to understand and form relationships with other human beings. A person with a respectful mind enjoys being exposed to different types of people. While not forgiving of all, she gives others the benefit of the doubt.

An ethical mind broadens respect for others into something more abstract. A person with an ethical mind asks herself, “What kind of a person, worker, and citizen do I want to be?”
— Howard Gardner

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Ethics and Personality / Behavior

Over the past few decades, many companies have become obsessed with benchmarking—comparing their performance with rivals on industry-wide standard metrics. But benchmarking pulls companies in exactly the wrong direction, because it leaves them looking more similar to their rivals, rather than more different.
— Richard Makadok

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Best Practices and Competition

Almost always, requests for resources require making two decisions: Should we support this business idea? and Is this proposal the right way to go about it? Most capital budgeting processes are set up to vet projects (in other words, they’re aimed at the second question, not the first). It is usually possible to carry out fairly rigorous quantitative analysis comparing the plan of action in a proposal with alternatives. It is important that this analysis be done—and it is often done ad nauseam. But our research shows that the first question, the business question, is more important and far more difficult to answer—and it is often ignored.
— Joseph L. Bower and Clark G. Gilbert

No Comments » Posted by Administrator / Business Development and Management