Quotes in management
Why did the system allow that mistake to be made?
What? You can’t expect us to design systems that prevent mistakes from being made.
Yes I can. That is much more sensible than expecting people never to make a mistake.
It is time to recognize conventional MBA programs for what they are - or else to close them down. They are specialized training in the functions of business, not general educating in the practice of management.
PDCA is the essence of managerial work: making sure the job gets done today and developing better ways to do it tomorrow.
The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.
A relentless barrage of "why's" is the best way to prepare your mind to pierce the clouded veil of thinking caused by the status quo. Use it often!
Managers must have the discipline not to keep pulling up the flowers to see if their roots are healthy.
If you ask managers what they do, they will most likely tell you that they plan, organize, coordinate and control. Then watch what they do. Don't be surprised if you can't relate what you see to those four words.
Management is a curious phenomenon. It is generously paid, enormously influential, and significantly devoid of common sense
There are four prongs of quality and four ways to improve quality of product and service:
- Innovation in product and service
- Innovation in process
- Improvement of existing product and service
- Improvement of existing process
The common mistake is the supposition that quality is ensured by No. 4, improvement of process, that operations going off without blemish on the factory floor, in the bank, in the hotel will ensure quality. Good operations are essential, yet they do not ensure quality. Quality is made in the boardroom.
A bank that failed last week may have had excellent operations— speed at the tellers’ windows with few mistakes; few mistakes in bank statements; likewise in the calculation of interest and of penalties and loans. The cause of failure at the bank was bad management, not operations.
Experience teaches nothing. In fact there is no experience to record without theory… Without theory there is no learning… And that is their downfall. People copy examples and then they wonder what is the trouble. They look at examples and without theory they learn nothing.