Quotes in management

Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.

We don't have as many managers as we should, but we would rather have too few than too many.

A good manager is a man who isn't worried about his own career but rather the careers of those who work for him. My advice: Don't worry about yourself. Take care of those who work for you and you'll float to greatness on their achievements.

Managers have traditionally developed the skills in finance, planning, marketing and production techniques. Too often the relations with their people have been assigned a secondary role. This is too important a subject not to receive first-line attention. In this regard we could learn much from the Japanese. We must reinvest in the human side of management.

Real benefits come when managers begin to understand the profound difference between "cost cutting" and "eliminating the causes of costs."

There are three ways to get better figures... Improve the system... Distort the system... Distort the figures

It is far better to do the right thing wrong than to do the wrong thing right.

Two resources, largely untapped in American organizations, are potential information and employee creativity

The first step is to measure whatever can easily be measured. This is OK as far as it goes. The second step is to disregard that which can't be easily measured or to give it an arbitrary quantitative value. This is artificial and misleading. The third step is to presume that what can't be measured easily really isn't important. This is blindness. The fourth step is to say that what can't be easily measured really doesn't exist. This is suicide.

The manager is a servant. His master is the institution he manages and his first responsibility must therefore be to it.