"Present opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages." (Samuel Johnson, "The Idler", 1801)
"For any manager to utilize graphic methods for visualizing the vital facts of his business, in the first place it must be impressed upon his that the method will produce the results for him and then he must know how to get up a chart correctly, and last, but far from least, he must know what the essential facts of his business are. Charts, in themselves, mean little and like many another force for the accomplishment of good, if misdirected, may result unprofitably." (Allan C Haskell, "How to Make and Use Graphic Charts", 1919)
"The fine art of executive decision consists in not deciding questions that are not now pertinent, in not deciding prematurely, in not making decision that cannot be made effective, and in not making decisions that others should make. Not to decide questions that are not pertinent at the time is uncommon good sense, though to raise them may be uncommon perspicacity. Not to decide questions prematurely is to refuse commitment of attitude or the development of prejudice. Not to make decisions that cannot be made effective is to refrain from destroying authority. Not to make decisions that others should make is to preserve morale, to develop competence, to fix responsibility, and to preserve authority.
From this it may be seen that decisions fall into two major classes, positive decisions - to do something, to direct action, to cease action, to prevent action; and negative decisions, which are decisions not to decide. Both are inescapable; but the negative decisions are often largely unconscious, relatively nonlogical, instinctive, 'good sense'. It is because of the rejections that the selection is good."" (Chester I Barnard, "The Functions of the Executive", 1938)"
"Good management are rarely overcompensated to an extent that makes any significant difference with respect to the stockholder's position. Poor management are always overcompensated, because they are worth less than nothing to the owners." (Benjamin Graham, "The Intelligent Investor", 1949)
"If charts do not reflect actual organization and if the organization is intended to be as charted, it is the job of effective management to see that actual organization conforms with that desired. Organization charts cannot supplant good organizing, nor can a chart take the place of spelling out authority relationships clearly and completely, of outlining duties of managers and their subordinates, and of defining responsibilities." (Harold Koontz & Cyril O Donnell, "Principles of Management", 1955)
"While good charting will attempt, as far as possible, to make levels on the chart conform to levels of importance in the business enterprise, it cannot always do so. This problem can be handled by clearly spelling out authority relationships." (Harold Koontz & Cyril O Donnell, "Principles of Management", 1955)
"To say a system is 'self-organizing' leaves open two quite different meanings. There is a first meaning that is simple and unobjectionable. This refers to the system that starts with its parts separate" (so that the behavior of each is independent of the others' states) and whose parts then act so that they change towards forming connections of some type. Such a system is 'self-organizing' in the sense that it changes from 'parts separated' to 'parts joined'. […] In general such systems can be more simply characterized as 'self-connecting', for the change from independence between the parts to conditionality can always be seen as some form of 'connection', even if it is as purely functional […] 'Organizing' […] may also mean 'changing from a bad organization to a good one' […] The system would be 'self-organizing' if a change were automatically made to the feedback, changing it from positive to negative; then the whole would have changed from a bad organization to a good." (W Ross Ashby, "Principles of the self-organizing system", 1962)
"The successful manager must be a good diagnostician and must value a spirit of inquiry." (Edgar H Schein, "Organizational Psychology", 1965)
"Good mission statements focus on a limited number of goals, stress the company's major policies and values, and define the company's major competitive scopes." (Philip Kotler, "Marketing Management", 1967)
"In most management problems there are too many possibilities to expect experience, judgement, or intuition to provide good guesses, even with perfect information." (Russell L Ackoff, "Management Science", 1967)
"Good results without good planning come from good luck, not good management." (David Jaquith, "The Time Trap", 1972
"To be productive the individual has to have control, to a substantial extent, over the speed, rhythm, and attention spans with which he is working […] While work is, therefore, best laid out as uniform, working is best organized with a considerable degree of diversity. Working requires latitude to change speed, rhythm, and attention span fairly often. It requires fairly frequent changes in operating routines as well. What is good industrial engineering for work is exceedingly poor human engineering for the worker." (Peter F Drucker, "Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices", 1973)
"Any approach to strategy quickly encounters a conflict between corporate objectives and corporate capabilities. Attempting the impossible is not good strategy; it is just a waste of resources." (Bruce Henderson, Henderson on Corporate Strategy, 1979)
"Executive stress is difficult to overstate when there is a conflict among policy restrictions, near-term performance, long-term good of the company, and personal survival." (Bruce Henderson, "Henderson on Corporate Strategy", 1979)
"[Organizational] change is intervention, and intervention even with good intentions can lead to negative results in both the short and long run. For example, a change in structure in going from application of one theory to another might cause the unwanted resignation of a key executive, or the loss of an important customer. [...] the factor of change, acts as an overriding check against continual organizational alterations. It means that regardless of how well meant a change is, or how much logic dictates this change, its possible negative effects must be carefully weighed against the hoped-for benefits." (William A Cohen, "Principles of Technical Management", 1980)
"A leader is one who, out of madness or goodness, volunteers to take upon himself the woe of the people. There are few men so foolish, hence the erratic quality of leadership in the world." (John Updike, "They Thought They Were Better", TIME magazine, 1980)
"Because the importance of training is so commonly underestimated, the manager who wants to make a dramatic improvement in organizational effectiveness without challenging the status quo will find a training program a good way to start." (Theodore Caplow, "Managing an Organization", 1983)
"It seems to me that we too often focus on the inside aspects of the job of management, failing to give proper attention to the requirement for a good manager to maintain those relationships between his organization and the environment in which it must operate which permits it to move ahead and get the job done." (Breene Kerr, Giants in Management, 1985)
"Managers who are skilled communicators may also be good at covering up real problems." (Chris Argyris, Harvard Business Review, 1986)
"Operating managers should in no way ignore short-term performance imperatives [when implementing productivity improvement programs.] The pressures arise from many sources and must be dealt with. Moreover, unless managers know that the day-to-day job is under control and improvements are being made, they will not have the time, the perspective, the self-confidence, or the good working relationships that are essential for creative, realistic strategic thinking and decision making." (Robert H Schaefer, Harvard Business Review, 1986)
"Some management groups are not good at problem solving and decision making precisely because the participants have weak egos and are uncomfortable with competition." (Chris Argyris, Harvard Business Review, 1986)
"The chain of command is an inefficient communication system. Although my staff and I had our goals, tasks, and priorities well defined, large parts of the organization didn't know what was going on. Frequent, thorough, open communication to every employee is essential to get the word out and keep walls from building within the company. And while face-to-face communication is more effective than impersonal messages, it's a good idea to vary the medium and the message so that no one (including top management) relies too much on ''traditional channels of communication." (William H Peace, Harvard Business Review, 1986)
"The source of good management is found in the imagination of leaders, persons who form new visions and manifest them with a high degree of craft. The blending of vision and craft communicates the purpose. In the arts, people who do that well are masters. In business, they are leaders." (Henry M. Boettinger, Harvard Business Review on Human Relations, 1986)
"Employees are most apt to deal with their problems when they believe that they will be helped in good faith." (Paul V Lyons, "Management", 1987)
"Good people can fix a lot of flaws in poor planning, but it's never the other way around." (Roland Shmitt, "Government Executive", 1987)
"Some people are excited about learning a new piece of software. Other people get very depressed. Good managers anticipate both situations they involve the persons to be affected in the process of selecting a particular program, and they provide time and resources for training. Training is the key in both cases." (Jonathan P Siegel, "Communications", 1988)
"Pressure can also make managers act out of character. Degrees of panic will cause a normally good manager to lose self-confidence and focus. Under stress, even a good plan can be abandoned." (Wheeler L Baker, "Crisis Management: A Model for Managers", 1993)
"Managers must clearly distinguish operational effectiveness from strategy. Both are essential, but the two agendas are different. The operational agenda involves continual improvement everywhere there are no trade-offs. Failure to do this creates vulnerability even for companies with a good strategy. The operational agenda is the proper place for constant change, flexibility, and relentless efforts to achieve best practice. In contrast, the strategic agenda is the right place for defining a unique position, making clear trade-offs, and tightening fit. It involves the continual search for ways to reinforce and extend the company’s position. The strategic agenda demands discipline and continuity; its enemies are distraction and compromise." (Michael E Porter, "What is Strategy?", Harvard Business Review, 1996)
"There's a fundamental distinction between strategy and operational effectiveness. Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it's about deliberately choosing to be different. Operational effectiveness is about things that you really shouldn't have to make choices on; it's about what's good for everybody and about what every business should be doing. " (Michael E Porter, "What is Strategy?", Harvard Business Review, 1996)
"An effective leader leaves a legacy; they leave their footprints on the road for others to follow. A good leader develops themselves and they develop others. They bring people together rather than divide them." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)
"Good leaders are ethical, responsible and effective. Ethical because leadership connects you to others through shared values. Responsible because leadership means self-development and not simply giving orders, however charismatically, to get others to do what you want. Effective because shared values and goals give the strongest motivation for getting tasks done. There are no guarantees, but this sort of leadership will bring you closer to people and give you the greatest chance of success." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)
"Managing [...] used to be about planning and control. Top management decided what was to be done, middle management worked out how to do it and everyone else did as they were told. This model assumed, of course, that top management knew what needed to be done, that the orders had time to percolate their way down and that, like a good army, the lower ranks would obey." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)
"Good leaders make people feel that they're at the very heart of things, not at the periphery. Everyone feels that he or she makes a difference to the success of the organization. When that happens, people feel centered and that gives their work meaning." (Warren Bennis, "Managing People Is Like Herding Cats", 1999)
"Making good judgments when one has complete data, facts, and knowledge is not leadership - it's bookkeeping." (Dee Hock, "Birth of the Chaordic Age", 1999)
"Data have to be filtered in some manner to make them intelligible. This filtration may be based upon a person's experience plus his presuppositions and assumptions, or it may be more formalized and less subjective, but there will always be some method of analysis. If experience is the basis for interpreting the data, then the interpretation is only as good as the manager's past experience. If the current situation is outside the manager’s experience, then his interpretation of the data may well be incorrect. Likewise, flawed assumptions or flawed presuppositions can also result in flawed interpretations. However, in the absence of formal and standardized data, most managers use the scat-of-the-pants approach. and in the end, about all they can say that some days appear to be better than others." (Donald J Wheeler," Understanding Variation: The Key to Managing Chaos" 2nd Ed., 2000)
"I've learned that mistakes can often be as good a teacher as success." (Jack Welch, "Jack: Straight from the Gut", 2001)
"Project failures are not always the result of poor methodology; the problem may be poor implementation. Unrealistic objectives or poorly defined executive expectations are two common causes of poor implementation. Good methodologies do not guarantee success, but they do imply that the project will be managed correctly." (Harold Kerzner, "Strategic Planning for Project Management using a Project Management Maturity Model", 2001)
"The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter." (Malcolm Gladwell, "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking", 2005)
"Wisdom and good governance require more than the consistent application of abstract principles." (Anthony Daniels, "Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies and the Addiction Bureaucracy", 2006)
"Enterprise architecture is the organizing logic for business processes and IT infrastructure reflecting the integration and standardization requirements of the company's operating model. The operating model is the desired state of business process integration and business process standardization for delivering goods and services to customers." (Peter Weill, "Innovating with Information Systems Presentation", 2007)
"Whereas strategy is abstract and based on long-term goals, tactics are concrete and based on finding the best move right now. Tactics are conditional and opportunistic, all about threat and defense. No matter what pursuit you’re engaged in - chess, business, the military, managing a sports team - it takes both good tactics and wise strategy to be successful." (Garry Kasparov, "How Life Imitates Chess", 2007)
"A bad strategy will fail no matter how good your information is and lame execution will stymie a good strategy. If you do enough things poorly, you will go out of business." (Bill Gates, "Business @ the Speed of Thought: Succeeding in the Digital Economy", 2009)
"A good strategy is one that takes into account not only the requirements of the position, but also the opponent's strategy and tactics. Strategy lies between science and art. It supports the ability to evaluate positions, recognize patterns and imagine adequate plans." (Mihai Suba, "Dynamic Chess Strategy", 2010)
"And even if we make good plans based on the best information available at the time and people do exactly what we plan, the effects of our actions may not be the ones we wanted because the environment is nonlinear and hence is fundamentally unpredictable. As time passes the situation will change, chance events will occur, other agents such as customers or competitors will take actions of their own, and we will find that what we do is only one factor among several which create a new situation." (Stephen Bungay, "The Art of Action: How Leaders Close the Gaps between Plans, Actions, and Results", 2010)
"Almost by definition, one is rarely privileged to 'control' a disaster. Yet the activity somewhat loosely referred to by this term is a substantial portion of Management, perhaps the most important part. […] It is the business of a good Manager to ensure, by taking timely action in the real world, that scenarios of disaster remain securely in the realm of Fantasy." (John Gall, "The Systems Bible: The Beginner's Guide to Systems Large and Small"[Systematics 3rd Ed.], 2011)
"Clearly, total feedback is Not a Good Thing. Too much feedback can overwhelm the response channels, leading to paralysis and inaction. Even in a system designed to accept massive feedback" (such as the human brain), if the system is required to accommodate to all incoming data, equilibrium will never be reached. The point of decision will be delayed indefinitely, and no action will be taken." (John Gall, "The Systems Bible: The Beginner's Guide to Systems Large and Small"[Systematics 3rd Ed.], 2011)
"Despite the roar of voices wanting to equate strategy with ambition, leadership, 'vision', planning, or the economic logic of competition, strategy is none of these. The core of strategy work is always the same: discovering the critical factors in a situation and designing a way of coordinating and focusing actions to deal with those factors." (Richard Rumelt, "Good Strategy Bad Strategy", 2011)
"Having conflicting goals, dedicating resources to unconnected targets, and accommodating incompatible interests are the luxuries of the rich and powerful, but they make for bad strategy. Despite this, most organizations will not create focused strategies. Instead, they will generate laundry lists of desirable outcomes and, at the same time, ignore the need for genuine competence in coordinating and focusing their resources. Good strategy requires leaders who are willing and able to say no to a wide variety of actions and interests. Strategy is at least as much about what an organization does not do as it is about what it does." (Richard Rumelt, "Good Strategy/Bad Strategy", 2011)
"It is hard to avoid the conclusion that while strategy is undoubtedly a good thing to have, it is a hard thing to get right. […] So what turns something that is not quite strategy into strategy is a sense of actual or imminent instability, a changing context that induces a sense of conflict. Strategy therefore starts with an existing state of affairs and only gains meaning by an awareness of how, for better or worse, it could be different." (Lawrence Freedman, “Strategy: A history”, 2013)
"You can only look so far, and so you better just keep looking frequently. That’s the most important element of strategy: You understand the direction you’re going, but you also know what you’re going to do in the next six months. Most companies will do a pretty good job many times about the direction, but then they never break it down to shorter metrics. Intel did a super job on that. When you ask why [we] succeeded, this is one of the reasons." (Les Vadasz, 2013)
"Good decision-making is like playing chess and you must avoid making hasty decisions without thinking of how that particular decision will impact on different aspects of your work and organization. The worst kind of decision-making is to decide to delay a difficult decision until later or to pass it to someone else to have to make. You will never excel and be valued by your colleagues if you get into these habits of procrastination and passing responsibility to others." (Nigel Cumberland, "Secrets of Success at Work: 50 techniques to excel", 2014)
"Good governance is less about structure and rules than being focused, effective and accountable." (Pearl Zhu, "Digitizing Boardroom: The Multifaceted Aspects of Digital Ready Boards", 2016)
"Good mission statements have five major characteristics. (1) They focus on a limited number of goals. (2) They stress the company’s major policies and values. (3) They define the major competitive spheres within which the company will operate. (4) They take a long-term view." (5) They are as short, memorable, and meaningful as possible." (Philip Kotler & Kevin L Keller, "Marketing Management" 15th Ed., 2016)
"No methodology can guarantee success. But a good methodology can provide a feedback loop for continual improvement and learning." (Ash Maurya, "Scaling Lean: Mastering the Key Metrics for Startup Growth", 2016)
"Decision trees are considered a good predictive model to start with, and have many advantages. Interpretability, variable selection, variable interaction, and the flexibility to choose the level of complexity for a decision tree all come into play." (Ralph Winters, "Practical Predictive Analytics", 2017)
"Random forests are essentially an ensemble of trees. They use many short trees, fitted to multiple samples of the data, and the predictions are averaged for each observation. This helps to get around a problem that trees, and many other machine learning techniques, are not guaranteed to find optimal models, in the way that linear regression is. They do a very challenging job of fitting non-linear predictions over many variables, even sometimes when there are more variables than there are observations. To do that, they have to employ 'greedy algorithms', which find a reasonably good model but not necessarily the very best model possible." (Robert Grant, "Data Visualization: Charts, Maps and Interactive Graphics", 2019)
"If you do not conduct sufficient analysis and if you do not have firm technical knowledge, you cannot carry out improvement or standardization, nor can you perform good control or prepare control charts useful for effective control." (Kaoru Ishikawa)
"The traditional approach to leadership values decision-making conviction and consistency; good leaders 'stick to their guns'. By contrast, the emerging approach recognizes that in fast-changing environments, decisions often need to be reversed or adapted, and that changing course in response to new information is a strength, not a weakness. If this tension is not managed wisely, leaders run the risk of seeming too rigid, on the one hand, or too wishy-washy on the other." (Jennifer Jordan et al, "Every Leader Needs to Navigate These 7 Tensions", Harvard Business Review, 2020)
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