♟️Strategic Management: Management (Just the Quotes)

"Management of many is the same as management of few. It is a matter of organization." (Sun Tzu, "The Art of War", cca. 5th century BC)

"And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new." (Nicolo Machiavelli, cca. 1505)

"The art of management has been defined, 'As knowing exactly what you want men to do, and then seeing that they do it in the best and cheapest way.' No concise definition can fully describe an art, but the relations between employers and men form without question the most important part of this art. In considering the subject, therefore, until this part of the problem has been fully discussed, the remainder of the art may be left in the background." (Frederick W Taylor, "Shop Management", 1903)

"The writer feels that management is also destined to become more of an art, and that many of the, elements which are now believed to be outside the field of exact knowledge will soon be standardized tabulated, accepted, and used, as are now many of the elements of engineering." (Frederick W Taylor, "Shop Management", 1903)

"The principal object of management should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer coupled with the maximum prosperity for each employee." (Frederick W Taylor, "Principles of Scientific Management", 1911)

"To manage is to forecast and plan, to organize, to command, to coordinate and to control. To foresee and plan means examining the future and drawing up the plan of action. To organize means building up the dual structure, material and human, of the undertaking. To command means binding together, unifying and harmonizing all activity and effort. To control means seeing that everything occurs in conformity with established rule and expressed demand." (Henri Fayol, 1916)

"There is some confusion today as to the meaning of scientific management. This concerns itself with the nature of such management itself, with the scope or field to which such management applies, and with the aims that it desires to attain. Scientific management is simply management that is based upon actual measurement. Its skillful application is an art that must be acquired, but its fundamental principles have the exactness of scientific laws which are open to study by everyone. We have here nothing hidden or occult or secret, like the working practices of an old-time craft; we have here a science that is the result of accurately recorded, exact investigation." (Frank B Gilbreth Sr., "Applied Motion Study", 1917)

"Failure to succeed greatly in management usually occurs not so much from lack of knowledge of the important principles of the science of management as from failure to apply them. Most of the principles of successful management are old, and many of them have received sufficient publicity to be well known, but managers are curiously prone to look upon managerial success as a personal attribute that is slightly dependent on principles or laws." (Allan C Haskell, "How to Make and Use Graphic Charts", 1919)

"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 concept of management as a specific body of knowledge and practice forming the basis of a specialised profession. […] Wherever human activities are carried out in an organised and co-operative form, there management must be found." (Lyndall Urwick, "The Making Of Scientific Management", 1945)

"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)

"[...] authority - the right by which superiors are able to require conformity of subordinates to decisions - is the basis for responsibility and the force that binds organization together. The process of organizing encompasses grouping of activities for purposes of management and specification of authority relationships between superiors and subordinates and horizontally between managers. Consequently, authority and responsibility relationships come into being in all associative undertakings where the superior-subordinate link exists. It is these relationships that create the basic character of the managerial job." (Harold Koontz & Cyril O Donnell, "Principles of Management", 1955)

"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)

"The essence of managership is the achievement of coordination among people. Coordination is a complex concept, including principles by which harmonious enterprise activity can be accomplished and the many techniques for achieving the greatest synchronized effort." (Harold Koontz & Cyril O Donnell, "Principles of Management", 1955)

"Management tries to make the best use of the resources available." (Edith Penrose, "The Theory of the Growth of the Firm", 1959)

"Management is a distinct process consisting of planning, organising, actuating and controlling; utilising in each both science and art, and followed in order to accomplish pre-determined objectives." (George R Terry, "Principles of Management", 1960)

"The key question for top management is what are your assumptions (implicit as well as explicit) about the most effective way to manage people?" (Douglas McGregor, "The Human Side of Enterprise", 1960)

"[System dynamics] is an approach that should help in important top-management problems [...] The solutions to small problems yield small rewards. Very often the most important problems are but little more difficult to handle than the unimportant. Many [people] predetermine mediocre results by setting initial goals too low. The attitude must be one of enterprise design. The expectation should be for major improvement [...] The attitude that the goal is to explain behavior; which is fairly common in academic circles, is not sufficient. The goal should be to find management policies and organizational structures that lead to greater success." (Jay W Forrester, "Industrial Dynamics", 1961)

"We have endeavored to stress the appropriateness of each system to its own specific set of conditions. Equally, we desire to avoid the suggestion that either system is superior under all circumstances to the other. In particular, nothing in our experience justifies the assumption that mechanistic systems should be superseded by organic in conditions of stability. The beginning of administrative wisdom is the awareness that there is no one optimum type of management system". (Tom Burns, "The Management of Innovation", 1961)

"If cybernetics is the science of control, management is the profession of control." (Anthony S Beer, "Decision and Control", 1966)

"Management is defined here as the accomplishment of desired objectives by establishing an environment favorable to performance by people operating in organized groups." (Harold Koontz, "Principles of Management", 1968)

"Management as an activity has always existed to make people’s desires through organized effort. Management facilitates the efforts of people in organized groups and arises when people seek to cooperate to achieve goals." (Daniel A Wren, "The evolution of management thought", 1972)

"[Management] has authority only as long as it performs." (Peter F Drucker, "Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices", 1973)

"Organizationally what is required - and evolving - is systems management." (Peter F Drucker, "Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices", 1973)

"There is a point of complexity beyond which a business is no longer manageable." (Peter F Drucker, "Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices", 1973)

"The worker's effectiveness is determined largely by the way he is being managed. (Peter F Drucker, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices", 1973)

"Managing with information from financial accounting systems impedes business performance today because traditional cost accounting data do not track sources of competitiveness and profitability in the global economy. Cost information, per se, does not track sources of competitive advantage such as quality, flexibility and dependability. […] Business needs information about activities, not accounting costs, to manage competitive operations and to identify profitable products." (H T Johnson, "Managing Costs: An Outmoded Philosophy", Manufacturing Engineering, 1980) 

"The models of management which individuals and organizations use come from a variety of sources. Sometimes the model comes from a theory. The theory may emerge from someone's thoughts about the desired characteristics of a manager, or about the characteristics of competent managers. Sometimes the model comes from a panel. A group of people, possibly in the job or at levels above the job within the organization, generates a model through discussion of what is needed to perform a management job competently." (Richard Boyatzis, "Competent Manager", 1982)

"Management manages by making decisions and by seeing that those decisions are implemented."  (Harold Geneen, "Managing", 1984)

"Management: The definition that includes all the other definitions in this book and which, because of that, is the most general and least precise. Its concrete, people meaning - the board of directors and all executives with the power to make decisions - is no problem, except for the not-so-little matter of where to draw the line between managers who are part of 'the management' and managers who are not. (Robert Heller, "The Pocket Manager", 1987)

"Management skills are only part of what it takes. [...] Managers must also be corporate warriors or leaders. These unique individuals are the problem identifiers. They possess a strong sense of vision; view firefighting as an opportunity to do things differently and smarter; and are business strategists who help identify key corporate growth issues." (John W Aldridge, Management Review, December 1987)

"Visible management attention, rather than management exhortation, gets things done. Action may start with the words, but it has to be backed by symbolic behavior that makes those words come alive." (Robert H Waterman, "The Renewal Factor", 1987)

"The future prospects of management science will be much enhanced if (a) the diversity of issues confronting managers is accepted, (b) work on developing a rich variety of problem-solving methodologies is undertaken, and (c) we continually ask the question: 'What kind of issue can be managed with which sort of methodology?'." (Robert L Flood & Michael C Jackson, "Creative Problem Solving: Total Systems Intervention", 1991)

"Management is not founded on observation and experiment, but on a drive towards a set of outcomes. These aims are not altogether explicit; at one extreme they may amount to no more than an intention to preserve the status quo, at the other extreme they may embody an obsessional demand for power, profit or prestige. But the scientist's quest for insight, for understanding, for wanting to know what makes the system tick, rarely figures in the manager's motivation. Secondly, and therefore, management is not, even in intention, separable from its own intentions and desires: its policies express them. Thirdly, management is not normally aware of the conventional nature of its intellectual processes and control procedures. It is accustomed to confuse its conventions for recording information with truths-about-the-business, its subjective institutional languages for discussing the business with an objective language of fact and its models of reality with reality itself." (Stanford Beer, "Decision and Control", 1994)

"Management is a set of processes that can keep a complicated system of people and technology running smoothly. The most important aspects of management include planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, controlling, and problem solving." (John P Kotter, "Leading Change", 1996) 

"Management keeps existing systems running smoothly. It is a skill; leadership more an identity issue. Leaders innovate, they change or modify existing procedures, and they focus on transformation. Leaders motivate people through their beliefs and values, pushing the edges of the current organizational culture; management accepts the current organizational culture and makes it work. Management gets people to do things and leaders get people to want to do things. Management works within boundaries and leaders work with boundaries (not without boundaries!) Managers are people who do things right. Leaders are people who do the right thing." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"Managers sometimes justify the stick by pointing to better results, with the assumption that the threats caused the improvements. Alas, this is unlikely. One event coming before another does not automatically mean that the first is the cause of the second; the rooster does not make the sun rise every morning, although it may think it does. Bad results are much more likely to improve than get worse due to the simple law of statistics known as regression: results average out over time. Poor performance will eventually improve even when left to itself." (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)

♟️Strategic Management: Decision Trees (Just the Quotes)

"A decision tree does not give management the answer to an investment problem; rather, it helps management determine which alternative at any particular choice point will yield the greatest expected monetary gain, given the information and alternatives pertinent to the decision."  (John F Magee, "Decision Trees for Decision Making", Harvard Business Review, 1964) [source]

"A decision tree of any size will always combine (a) action choices with (b) different possible events or results of action which are partially affected by chance or other uncontrollable circumstances." (John F Magee, "Decision Trees for Decision Making", Harvard Business Review, 1964) [source]

"The unique feature of the decision tree is that it allows management to combine analytical techniques such as discounted cash flow and present value methods with a clear portrayal of the impact of future decision alternatives and events. Using the decision tree, management can consider various courses of action with greater ease and clarity. The interactions between present decision alternatives, uncertain events, and future choices and their results become more visible." (John F Magee, "Decision Trees for Decision Making", Harvard Business Review, 1964) [source]

"[decision trees are the] most picturesque of all the allegedly scientific aids to making decisions. The analyst charts all the possible outcomes of different options, and charts all the latters' outcomes, too. This produces a series of stems and branches (hence the tree). Each of the chains of events is given a probability and a monetary value." (Robert Heller, "The Pocket Manager", 1987)

"Decision trees make decision-making easier by identifying a series of conditions and actions. They are used to determine actions in response to given situations. [...] One benefit of a decision tree is that it gives a visual depiction of all the conditions and actions of a decision. They are also easy to construct and follow, and they may be compressed into a decision table." (Ralph L Kliem & Irwin S Ludin, Tools and Tips for Today's Project Manager, 1999)

"One advantage that decision tree modeling has over other pattern recognition techniques lies in the interpretability of the decision model. Due to this interpretability, information relating to the identification of important features and interclass relationships can be used to support the design of future experiments and data analysis." (S D Brown, A J Myles, in Comprehensive Chemometrics, 2009)

"Decision trees are an important tool for decision making and risk analysis, and are usually represented in the form of a graph or list of rules. One of the most important features of decision trees is the ease of their application. Being visual in nature, they are readily comprehensible and applicable. Even if users are not familiar with the way that a decision tree is constructed, they can still successfully implement it. Most often decision trees are used to predict future scenarios, based on previous experience, and to support rational decision making." (Jelena Djuris et al, "Neural computing in pharmaceutical products and process development", Computer-Aided Applications in Pharmaceutical Technology, 2013)

"Decision trees (DTs) are the simplest modeling techniques and are most appropriate for modeling interventions in which the relevant events occur over a short time period. The main limitation of decision trees is their inflexibility to model decision problems, which involve recurring events and are ongoing over time. " (H Haji Ali Afzali & J Karnon, "Specification and Implementation of Decision Analytic Model Structures for Economic Evaluation of Health Care Technologies", Encyclopedia of Health Economics, 2014)

"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)

"Decision trees show the breakdown of the data by one variable then another in a very intuitive way, though they are generally just diagrams that don’t actually encode data visually." (Robert Grant, "Data Visualization: Charts, Maps and Interactive Graphics", 2019)

"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)

♟️Strategic Management: Cooperation (Just the Quotes)

"The whole object of the organization is to get cooperation, to get to each individual the benefit of all the knowledge and all the experience of all individuals." (Hamilton M Barksdale, 1909)

"It is only through enforced standardization of methods, enforced adoption of the best implements and working conditions, and enforced cooperation that this faster work can be assured. And the duty of enforcing the adoption of standards and enforcing this cooperation rests with management alone." (Frederick W Taylor, "Principles of Scientific Management", 1911)

"The concept of management as a specific body of knowledge and practice forming the basis of a specialized profession. […] Wherever human activities are carried out in an organized and co-operative form, there management must be found." (Lyndall Urwick, "The Making Of Scientific Management", 1945)

"[...] when a variety of tasks have all to be performed in cooperation, synchronization, and communication, a business needs managers and a management. Otherwise, things go out of control; plans fail to turn into action; or, worse, different parts of the plans get going at different speeds, different times, and with different objectives and goals, and the favor of the 'boss' becomes more important than performance." (Peter F Drucker, "People and Performance", 1977)

"A systematic effort must be made to emphasize the group instead of the individual. [...] Group goals and responsibilities can usually overcome any negative reactions to the individual and enforce a standard of cooperation that is attainable by persuasion or exhortation." (Eugene Raudsepp, MTS Digest, 1987)

"The manager must decide what type of group is wanted. If cooperation, teamwork, and synergy really matter, then one aims for high task interdependence. One structures the jobs of group members so that they have to interact frequently [...] to get their jobs done. Important outcomes are made dependent on group performance. The outcomes are distributed equally. If frenzied, independent activity is the goal, then one aims for low task interdependence and large rewards are distributed competitively and unequally." (Gregory P Shea & Richard A Guzzo, Sloan Management Review, 1987)

"Enterprise architecture is a holistic representation of all the components of the enterprise and the use of graphics and schemes are used to emphasize all parts of the enterprise, and how they are interrelated. [...] Enterprise architectures are used to deal with intra-organizational processes, interorganizational cooperation and coordination, and their shared use of information and information technologies. Business developments, such as outsourcing, partnership, alliances and Electronic Data Interchange, extend the need for architecture across company boundaries." (Gordon B Davis," The Blackwell encyclopedic dictionary of management information systems"‎, 1999)

"Enterprise architecture" (EA) promotes the belief that an enterprise, as a complex system, can be designed or improved in an orderly fashion achieving better overall results than ad-hoc organization and design. EA is a co-operative effort of designers, analysts and managers and uses enterprise models in the process [...] enterprise models carry meaning. This resulted in requirements for the enterprise engineering process, which - if not met - can limit the viability of the process. The analysis of the same factors resulted in requirements for improved Enterprise Modelling Tools." (Peter Bernus, "Enterprise models for enterprise architecture and ISO9000: 2000", 2003) 

"Truly human leadership protects an organization from the internal rivalries that can shatter a culture. When we have to protect ourselves from each other, the whole organization suffers. But when trust and cooperation thrive internally, we pull together and the organization grows stronger as a result." (Simon Sinek, "Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't", 2014)

♟️Strategic Management: Leadership vs. Management (Just the Quotes)

"And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new."  (Nicolo Machiavelli, cca. 1505)

"No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings." (Peter Drucker, "Big business: a study of the political problems of American capitalism", 1947)

"The concept of leadership has an ambiguous status in organizational practice, as it does in organizational theory. In practice, management appears to be of two minds about the exercise of leadership. Many jobs are so specified in content and method that within very broad limits differences among individuals become irrelevant, and acts of leadership are regarded as gratuitous at best, and at worst insubordinate." (Daniel Katz & Robert L Kahn, "The Social Psychology of Organizations", 1966)

"Organizational cultures are created by leaders, and one of the decisive functions of leadership may well be the creation, the management, and - if and when that may become necessary - the destruction of culture." (Edgar Schein, "Organizational Culture and Leadership", 1985)

"Management skills are only part of what it takes. [...] Managers must also be corporate warriors or leaders. These unique individuals are the problem identifiers. They possess a strong sense of vision; view firefighting as an opportunity to do things differently and smarter; and are business strategists who help identify key corporate growth issues." (John W Aldridge, Management Review, December 1987)

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things." (Stephen R Covey & Warren Bennis, "The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People", 1989)

"The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it." (Warren Bennis, 1989)

"Management is clearly different from leadership. Leadership is primarily a high-powered, right-brain activity. It's more of an art it's based on a philosophy. You have to ask the ultimate questions of life when you're dealing with personal leadership issues. (Stephen Covey, "Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People", 1994)

"The importance of top management commitment to organizational change is so well accepted that it is almost cliché to repeat the fact. We would therefore expect managerial values to be just as important in this area as in others that require strategic direction and leadership" (Thomas A Kochan,"The Mutual Gains Enterprise", 1994) 

"Management is a set of processes that can keep a complicated system of people and technology running smoothly. The most important aspects of management include planning, budgeting, organizing, staffing, controlling, and problem solving. Leadership is a set of processes that creates organizations in the first place or adapts them to significantly changing circumstances. Leadership defines what the future should look like, aligns people with that vision, and inspires them to make it happen despite the obstacles." (John P Kotter, "Leading Change", 1996) 

"You can manage what you do not understand, but you cannot lead it." (Myron Tribus,"You Cannot Lead What You Do Not Understand - You Do Not Understand What You Haven't Done", Journal of Innovative Management, 1996)

"Management keeps existing systems running smoothly. It is a skill; leadership more an identity issue. Leaders innovate, they change or modify existing procedures, and they focus on transformation. Leaders motivate people through their beliefs and values, pushing the edges of the current organizational culture; management accepts the current organizational culture and makes it work. Management gets people to do things and leaders get people to want to do things. Management works within boundaries and leaders work with boundaries (not without boundaries!) Managers are people who do things right. Leaders are people who do the right thing." (Joseph O’Connor, "Leading With NLP: Essential Leadership Skills for Influencing and Managing People", 1998)

"If great managers are catalysts, speeding up the reaction between the individual's talents and the company's goals, then great leaders are alchemists. Somehow they are able to transform our fear of the unknown into confidence in the future." (Marcus Buckingham,"The One Thing You Need to Know", 2005) 

"Real leaders ask hard questions and knock people out of their comfort zones and then manage the resulting distress." (Alan Hirsch, "The Faith of Leap", 2011)

"Management is a business skill; you can study it and learn about it. Leadership is a human skill; to become a better leader you need to learn more about humans, starting with yourself." (Kent Thiry, 2013)

"Stress and anxiety at work have less to do with the work we do and more to do with weak management and leadership." (Simon Sinek, "Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't", 2014)

"Because management deals mostly with the status quo and leadership deals mostly with change, in the next century we are going to have to try to become much more skilled at creating leaders." (John P Kotter)

"Control is not leadership; management is not leadership; leadership is leadership. If you seek to lead, invest at least 50% of your time in leading yourself–your own purpose, ethics, principles, motivation, conduct. Invest at least 20% leading those with authority over you and 15% leading your peers." (Dee Hock)

"Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out." (Stephen Covey)

"Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall." (Stephen R Covey)

"Management works in the system; Leadership works on the system." (Stephen R. Covey)

♟️Strategic Management: Managers (Just the Quotes)

"The manager must never be lacking in knowledge of the special profession which is characteristic of the undertaking: the technical profession in industry, commercial in commerce, political in the State, military in the Army, religious in the Church, medical in the hospital, teaching in the school, etc. The technical function has long been given the degree of importance which is its due, and of which we must not deprive it, but the technical function by itself cannot endure the successful running of a business; it needs the help of the other essential functions and particularly of that of administration. This fact is so important from the point of view of the organization and management of a business that I do not mind how often I repeat it in order that it may be fully realized." (Henri Fayol, "Industrial and General Administration", 1916)

"Managers today come up against a few more communication barriers. One is the pressure of time. Listening carefully takes time, and managers have little of that to spare. In today’s business culture especially, with its emphasis on speed, already pressed managers may give short shrift to the slower art of one-on-one communication." (Carl Rogers & Fritz Roethlisberger, "Barriers and gateways to communication", Harvard Business Review, 1952)

"Each manager, from the 'big boss' down to the production foreman or the chief clerk, needs clearly spelled-out objectives. These objectives should lay out what performance the man’s [sic] own managerial unit is supposed to produce. They should lay out what contribution he and his unit are expected to make to help other units obtain their objectives. […] These objectives should always derive from the goals of the business enterprise. […] managers must understand that business results depend on a balance of efforts and results in a number of areas. […] Every manager should responsibly participate in the development of the objectives of the higher unit of which his is a part. […] He must know and understand the ultimate business goals, what is expected of him and why, what he will be measured against and how." (Peter Drucker, "The Practice of Management", 1954)

"Managers are the basic and scarcest resource of any business enterprise." (Peter F Drucker, "The Practice of Management", 1954)

"[...] authority - the right by which superiors are able to require conformity of subordinates to decisions - is the basis for responsibility and the force that binds organization together. The process of organizing encompasses grouping of activities for purposes of management and specification of authority relationships between superiors and subordinates and horizontally between managers. Consequently, authority and responsibility relationships come into being in all associative undertakings where the superior-subordinate link exists. It is these relationships that create the basic character of the managerial job." (Harold Koontz & Cyril O Donnell, "Principles of Management", 1955)

"Authority delegations from a superior to a subordinate may be made in large or small degree. The tendency to delegate much authority through the echelons of an organization structure is referred to as decentralization of authority. On the other hand, authority is said to be centralized wherever a manager tends not to delegate authority to his subordinates." (Harold Koontz & Cyril O Donnell, "Principles of Management", 1955)

"Responsibility cannot be delegated. While a manager may delegate to a subordinate authority to accomplish a service and the subordinate in turn delegate a portion of the authority received, none of these superiors delegates any of his responsibility. Responsibility, being an obligation to perform, is owed to one's superior, and no subordinate reduces his responsibility by assigning the duty to another. Authority may be delegated, but responsibility is created by the subordinate's acceptance of his assignment." (Harold Koontz & Cyril O Donnell, "Principles of Management", 1955)

"It is highly important for managers to be honest and clear in describing what authority they are keeping and what role they are asking their subordinates to assume." (Robert Tannenbaum & Warren H Schmidt, Harvard Business Review, 1958)

"We have overwhelming evidence that available information plus analysis does not lead to knowledge. The management science team can properly analyse a situation and present recommendations to the manager, but no change occurs. The situation is so familiar to those of us who try to practice management science that I hardly need to describe the cases." (C West Churchman, "Managerial acceptance of scientific recommendations", California Management Review Vol 7, 1964)

"The successful manager must be a good diagnostician and must value a spirit of inquiry." (Edgar H Schein, "Organizational Psychology", 1965)

"Managers need all the information they want. Most MIS designers 'determine' what information is needed by asking managers what information they would like to have. This is based on the assumption that managers know what information they need and want." (Russell L Ackoff, "Management Misinformation Systems", 1967)

"Most MIS [Management Information Systems] designers 'determine' what information is needed by asking managers what information they would like to have. This is based on the (often erroneous) assumption that managers know that information they need and want it." (Russell L Ackoff, Management Science, 1967)

"Targets set by individual managers are relevant to the company's goals because the entire management group is involved in the total planning process." (Walter S Wilkstrom, "Managing by-and-with Objectives", 1968)

"[Management by objectives is] a process whereby the superior and the subordinate managers of an enterprise jointly identify its common goals, define each individual's major areas of responsibility in terms of the results expected of him, and use these measures as guides for operating the unit and assessing the contribution of each of its members." (Robert House, "Administrative Science Quarterly", 1971)

"The myth of efficiency lies in the assumption that the most efficient manager is ipso facto the most effective; actually the most efficient manager working on the wrong task will not be effective." (R Alec Mackenzie, "The Time Trap", 1972)

"It is more important for the manager to get his information quickly and efficiently than to get it formally." (Henry Mintzberg, "The Nature of Managerial Work", 1973)

"The manager does not handle decisions one at a time; he juggles a host of them, dealing with each intermittently, all the while attempting to develop some integration among them." (Henry Mintzberg, "The Nature of Managerial Work", 1973)

"The manager faces the real danger of becoming a major obstruction in the flow of decisions and information." (Henry Mintzberg, "The Nature of Managerial Work, 1973)

"The manager is a servant. His master is the institution he manages and his first responsibility must therefore be to it." (Peter F Drucker, "Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices", 1973)

"The prime occupational hazard of the manager is superficiality." (Henry Mintzberg, "The Nature of Managerial Work", 1973)

"A manager [...] sets objectives [...] organizes [...] motivates and communicates [...] measure[s] [...] develops people. Every manager does these thingsknowingly or not. A manager may do them well, or may do them wretchedly, but always does them." (Peter F Drucker, "People and Performance", 1977)

"Above all, innovation is not invention. It is a term of economics rather than of technology. [...] The measure of innovation is the impact on the environment. [...] To manage innovation, a manager has to be at least literate with respect to the dynamics of innovation." (Peter F Drucker, "People and Performance", 1977)

"[...] when a variety of tasks have all to be performed in cooperation, syncronization, and communication, a business needs managers and a management. Otherwise, things go out of control; plans fail to turn into action; or, worse, different parts of the plans get going at different speeds, different times, and with different objectives and goals, and the favor of the 'boss' becomes more important than performance." (Peter F Drucker, "People and Performance", 1977)

"Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes. Problems are extracted from messes by analysis. Managers do not solve problems, they manage messes." (Russell L Ackoff, "The future of operational research is past", 1979)

"Managers construct, rearrange, single out, and demolish many objective features of their surroundings. When people act they unrandomize variables, insert vestiges of orderliness, and literally create their own constraints." (Karl E Weick, "Social Psychology of Organizing", 1979)

"Overly optimistic goals nearly always result in one of two extremes. If the goal is seen as a must, then the division manager must 'go for broke. This can result in reckless risk taking. More commonly [...] ultraconservative action. The reasoning is: "Why take any chances to achieve an unattainable goal."(Bruce Henderson, "Henderson on Corporate Strategy", 1979)

"The performance of profit center managers is [usually] measured over a moderate time span. The penalty for unsatisfactory absolute performance over the short-term is severe. The proper balance between known performance and potential future benefits is never clear." (Bruce Henderson, "Henderson on Corporate Strategy", 1979)

"A competent manager can usually explain necessary planning changes in terms of specific facts which have contributed to the change. The existing fear, or attitude of failure, which results from missed completion dates should be replaced by a more constructive fear of failing to keep a plan updated." (Philip F Gehring Jr. & Udo W Pooch, "Advances in Computer Programming Management", 1980)

"The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager." (Peter F Drucker, "Management in Turbulent Times", 1980)

"Knowledge specialists may ascribe a degree of certainty to their models of the world that baffles and offends managers. Often the complexity of the world cannot be reduced to mathematical abstractions that make sense to a manager. Managers who expect complete, one-to-one correspondence between the real world and each element in a model are disappointed and skeptical." (Dale E Zand, "Information, Organization, and Power", 1981)

"In management, there are few things as dangerous as a comprehensive, accurate answer to the wrong question. This is pseudo-knowledge. It easily misleads management into erroneous actions. Pseudo-knowledge has mushroomed with the advent of computers, which have made available masses of data that answer questions managers found too costly to ask before. In too many instances, however, the data are collected but not used because they answer irrelevant questions." (Dale E. Zand, "Information, Organization, and Power", 1981)

"Knowledge-based organizations require managers to be problem-centered rather than territory-centered." (Dale E Zand, "Information, Organization, and Power", 1981)

"Managers often try to give others the feeling that they are participating in the decision process. When a manager involves people in a problem for which he has adequate information and clear criteria for making an acceptable decision, he is engaging in pseudoconsultation. When he involves others in lengthy discussions of trivial problems, he is engaging in pseudoparticipation. Most people recognize these ceremonies as a waste of time." (Dale E Zand, "Information, Organization, and Power", 1981)

"Managing upward relies on informal relationships, timing, exploiting ambiguity, and implicit communication. And the irony of it all is that these most subtle skills must be learned and mastered by younger managers who not only lack education and directed experience in benign guerilla warfare but are further misguided by management myths which contribute to false expectations and a misleading perception of reality." (Richard T Pascale & Anthony G Athos, "The Art of Japanese Management", 1981)

"At the core of every manager’s job is the requirement to make things happen toward a goal or consistent with a plan. Managers need to set goals and initiate actions to achieve them." (Richard Boyatzis, "Competent Manager", 1982)

"Coaching subordinates isn't an addition to a manager's job; it's an integral part of it." (George S Odiorne, "How Managers Make Things Happen", 1982)

"Managers are being confronted by a wider range of external pressures that must be taken into account in their major decisions [...] includ[ing] environmental protection, employment opportunities for minorities and all sorts of disadvantaged, shielding the consumer, and conforming to increasing government regulations." (Boris Yavitz & William H Newman, "Strategy in Action, 1982)

"One important function of strategy is to counteract a tendency of professional managers to become too conservative and bureaucratic." (Boris Yavitz & William H Newman, "Strategy in Action", 1982)

"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)

"Effective managers live in the present but concentrate on the future." (James L Hayes, "Memos for Management: Leadership", 1983)

"If managers are careless about basic things telling the truth, respecting moral codes, proper professional conductwho can believe them on other issues?" (James L Hayes, "Memos for Management: Leadership", 1983)

"Individual contributors who gather and disseminate know-how and information should also be seen as middle managers, because they exert great power within the organization." (Andrew S Grove, "High Output Management", 1983)

"Leadership is a manager's ability to get subordinates to develop their capabilities by inspiring them to achieve." (John A Reinecke & William F Schoell, "Introduction to Business", 1983)

"Managers have an awareness that they are the direct representatives of the employees." (Takashi Ishihara, "Cherry Blossoms and Robotics", 1983)

"Organizational values are best transmitted when they are acted out, and not merely announced, by the people responsible for training, or by the people who become role-models for recruits. The manager of an organization is a role-model ex officio and may have an astonishing ability to communicate organizational values to recruits in fleeting contacts with them. That is the age-old secret of successful generalship, and it is applied every day by charismatic leaders in other fields, whose commitments to their roles is so dramatic that they strike awe into the recruits who observe them in action." (Theodore Caplow, "Managing an Organization", 1983)

"There is an especially efficient way to get information, much neglected by most managers. That is to visit a particular place in the company and observe what's going on there." (Andrew S Grove, "High Output Management", 1983)

"We try to make management decisions that, if everything goes right, will preclude future problems. But everything does not always go right, and managers therefore must be problem solvers as well as decision makers." (James L Hayes, "Memos for Management: Leadership", 1983)

"By assuming sole responsibility for their departments, managers produce the very narrowness and self-interest they deplore in subordinates. When subordinates are relegated to their narrow specialties, they tend to promote their own practical interests, which then forces other subordinates into counter-advocacy. The manager is thereby thrust into the roles of arbitrator, judge, and referee. Not only do priorities become distorted, but decisions become loaded with win/lose dynamics. So, try as the manager might, decisions inevitably lead to disgruntlement and plotting for the next battle." (David L Bradford & Allan R Cohen, "Managing for Excellence", 1984)

"Most managers are reluctant to comment on ineffective or inappropriate interpersonal behavior. But these areas are often crucial for professional task success. This hesitancy is doubly felt when there is a poor relationship between the two. [...] Too few managers have any experience in how to confront others effectively; generally they can more easily give feedback on inadequate task performance than on issues dealing with another's personal style." (David L Bradford & Allan R Cohen, "Managing for Excellence", 1984)

"Most managers are rewarded if their unit operates efficiently and effectively. A highly creative unit, in contrast, might appear ineffective and uneven, and rather crazy to an outside or inside observer." (William G Dyer, "Strategies for Managing Change", 1984)

"One of the most important tasks of a manager is to eliminate his people's excuses for failure." (Robert Townsend, "Further Up the Organization", 1984)

"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)

"The key mission of contemporary management is to transcend the old models which limited the manager's role to that of controller, expert or morale booster. These roles do not produce the desired result of aligning the goals of the employees and the corporation. [...] These older models, vestiges of a bygone era, have served their function and must be replaced with a model of the manager as a developer of human resources." (Michael Durst, "Small Systems World", 1985)

"A real challenge for some organizations is to build more qualitative information into their formal systems. One method used in some companies is to request a written narrative with each submission of statistics from the field. Another method is to hold periodic, indepth discussions involving several managers from different levels so that each can contribute whatever qualitative data are available to him." (Larry E Greiner et al, "Human Relations", 1986)

"[In a crisis:] Resist the pressure to take premature action. Talk to your people individually to find the crisis heroes, the handful of managers who have a clear understanding of the situation, see it the way you do, and can deal with any ambiguity involved. After you find them, tell them what you expect and lean on them hard." (Gerald C Meyers, "When It Hits the Fan", 1986)

"[Management science techniques] have had little impact on areas of decision-making where the management problems do not lend themselves to explicit formulation, where there are ambiguous or overlapping criteria for action, and where the manager operates through intuition." (James L McKenney & Peter G W Keen, Harvard Business Review on  Human Relations, 1986)

"Managers who are skilled communicators may also be good at covering up real problems." (Chris Argyris, Harvard Business Review, 1986)

"Most managers, most of the time, treat the happenings of the past as if they were the permanent or given nature of things, rather than simply things that occurred in the past." (Kenneth and Linda Schatz, "Management By Influence" 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)

"The inherent conflict between managers and professionals results basically from a clash of cultures: the corporate culture, which captures the commitment of managers, and the professional culture, which socializes professionals." (Joseph A Raelin, Harvard Business School, 1986)

"The practice of declaring codes of ethics and teaching them to managers is not enough to deter unethical conduct." (Saul W Gellerman, Harvard Business Review, 1986)

"The 'management by objectives' school [...] suggests that detailed objectives be spelled out at all levels in the corporation. This method is feasible at lower levels of management, but it becomes unworkable at the upper levels. The top manager must think out objectives in detail, but ordinarily some of the objectives must be withheld, or at least communicated to the organization in modest doses. A conditioning process that may stretch over months or years is necessary in order to prepare the organization for radical departures from what it is currently striving to attain." (H Edward Wrapp, Harvard Business Review on Human Relations, 1986)

"Top managers are currently inundated with reams of information concerning the organizational units under their supervision. Behind this information explosion lies a seemingly logical assumption made by information specialists and frequently accepted by line managers: if top management can be supplied with more 'objective' and 'accurate' quantified information, they will make 'better' judgments about the performance of their operating units. [...] A research study we have recently completed indicates that quantified performance information may have a more limited role than is currently assumed or envisioned; in fact, managers rely more on subjective information than they do on so called 'objective' statistics in assessing the overall performance of lower-level units." (Larry E. Greiner et al, Harvard Business Review on Human Relations, 1986)

"[Computer and other technical managers] must become business managers or risk landing on the technological rubbish heap." (Jim Leeke, PC Week, 1987)

"How you measure the performance of your managers directly affects the way they act." (John Dearden, Harvard Business Review, 1987)

"Management: The definition that includes all the other definitions in this book and which, because of that, is the most general and least precise. Its concrete, people meaning - the board of directors and all executives with the power to make decisions - is no problem, except for the not-so-little matter of where to draw the line between managers who are part of 'the management' and managers who are not. (Robert Heller, "The Pocket Manager", 1987)

"Management skills are only part of what it takes. [...] Managers must also be corporate warriors or leaders. These unique individuals are the problem identifiers. They possess a strong sense of vision; view firefighting as an opportunity to do things differently and smarter; and are business strategists who help identify key corporate growth issues." (John W Aldridge, Management Review, December 1987)

"Managers exist to plan, direct and control the project. Part of the way they control is to listen to and weigh advice. Once a decision is made, that's the way things should proceed until a new decision is reached. Erosion of management decisions by [support] people who always 'know better' undermines managers' credibility and can bring a project to grief." (Philip W Metzger, "Managing Programming People", 1987)

"Managers jeopardize product quality by setting unreachable deadlines. They don’​​​​​​t think about their action in such terms; they think rather that what they’​​​​​​re doing is throwing down an interesting challenge to their workers, something to help them strive for excellence." (Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister, "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams", 1987)

"Most managers are not capable of making decisions involving complex technological matters without helplots of it. [...] The finest technical people on the job should have a dual role: doing technical work and advising management." (Philip W Metzger, "Managing Programming People", 1987)

"Most of us managers are prone to one failing: A tendency to manage people as though they were modular components."  (Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister, "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams", 1987)

"People in the corporate world play to a higher audience that equates action with results. The constant pressure is to demonstrate that you are a tough manager capable of making tough decisions." (Charles J Bodenstab, Inc. Magazine, 1987)

[...] quality assurance is the job of the managers responsible for the product. A separate group can't 'assure' much if the responsible managers have not done their jobs properly. [...] Managers should be held responsible for quality and not allowed to slough off part of their responsibility to a group whose name sounds right but which cannot be guaranteed quality if the responsible managers have not been able to do so." (Philip W. Metzger, "Managing Programming People", 1987)

"Setting and communicating the right expectations is the most important tool a manager has for imparting that elusive drive to the people he supervises." (Andrew S. Grove, "One-On-One With Andy Grove", 1987)

"Setting goals can be the difference between success and failure. [...] Goals must not be defined so broadly that they cannot be quantified. Having quantifiable goals is an essential starting point if managers are to measure the results of their organization's activities. [...] Too often people mistake being busy for achieving goals." (Philip D Harvey & James D Snyder, Harvard Business Review, 1987)

"Telling a manager he's got to reach 25% growth isn't particularly relevant if his market isn't growing at all." (Ian A Cole, Business Week, 1987)

"The manager must decide what type of group is wanted. If cooperation, teamwork, and synergy really matter, then one aims for high task interdependence. One structures the jobs of group members so that they have to interact frequently [...] to get their jobs done. Important outcomes are made dependent on group performance. The outcomes are distributed equally. If frenzied, independent activity is the goal, then one aims for low task interdependence and large rewards are distributed competitively and unequally." (Gregory P Shea & Richard A Guzzo, Sloan Management Review, 1987)

"The major problems of our work are not so much technological as sociological in nature. Most managers are willing to concede the idea that they’​​​​​​ve got more people worries than technical worries. But they seldom manage that way. They manage as though technology were their principal concern. They spend their time puzzling over the most convoluted and most interesting puzzles that their people will have to solve, almost as though they themselves were going to do the work rather than manage it. […] The main reason we tend to focus on the technical rather than the human side of the work is not because it’​​​​​​s more crucial, but because it’​​​​​​s easier to do." (Tom DeMarco & Timothy Lister, "Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams", 1987)

"The most successful managers are those that can quickly grasp how their bosses think." (Amy Bermar, PC Week, 1987)

"The way to get higher productivity is to train better managers and have fewer of them." (William Woodside, "Thriving on Chaos", 1987)

"When they [managers] can't manage because of too much oversight, it permeates the entire organization." (Frank C Carlucci, "Frank Carlucci on Management in Government", 1987)

"There's a burnout problem among programmers just as there is in any group. You can't expect a programmer to sit for weeks, months, years, doing the same type of programming, and not slack off. [...] Preventing stagnation is the manager's job. [...] Get them totally away from their current jobs." (Philip W Metzger, "Managing Programming People", 1987)

"To be effective, a manager must accept a decreasing degree of direct control." (Eric G Flamholtz & Yvonne Randal, "The Inner Game of Management", 1987)

"[Well-managed modern organizations] treat everyone as a source of creative input. What's most interesting is that they cannot be described as either democratically or autocratically managed. Their managers define the boundaries, and their people figure out the best way to do the job within those boundaries. The management style is an astonishing combination of direction and empowerment. They give up tight control in order to gain control over what counts: results." (Robert H Waterman, "The Renewal Factor", 1987)

"Rather than allowing them [subordinates] the autonomy to get involved and do the work in their own ways, what happens all too often is the manager wants the workers to do it the manager's way." (Edward L Deci, Nation's Business, 1988)

"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)

"The future prospects of management science will be much enhanced if (a) the diversity of issues confronting managers is accepted, (b) work on developing a rich variety of problem-solving methodologies is undertaken, and (c) we continually ask the question: 'What kind of issue can be managed with which sort of methodology?'." (Robert L Flood & Michael C Jackson, "Creative Problem Solving: Total Systems Intervention", 1991)

"A manager of people needs to understand that all people are different. This is not ranking people. He needs to understand that the performance of anyone is governed largely by the system that he works in, the responsibility of management." (W Edwards Deming, "The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education", 1993)

"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)

"Industrial managers faced with a problem in production control invariably expect a solution to be devised that is simple and unidimensional. They seek the variable in the situation whose control will achieve control of the whole system: tons of throughput, for example. Business managers seek to do the same thing in controlling a company; they hope they have found the measure of the entire system when they say 'everything can be reduced to monetary terms'." (Stanford Beer, "Decision and Control", 1994)

"The trouble is that no manager can really handle the full-scale isomorph of his enterprise unless he is the only employee. To delegate is to embark on a series of one-many transformations. The manager can at best settle for a homomorph consisting of all the ones." (Stanford Beer, "Decision and Control", 1994)

"Experience is the consequence of activity. The manager literally wades into the swarm of 'events' that surround him and actively tries to unrandomize them and impose some order: The manager acts physically in the environment, attends to some of it, ignores most of it, talks to other people about what they see and are doing."  (Karl E Weick, "Sensemaking in Organizations", 1995)

"Managers are incurably susceptible to panacea peddlers. They are rooted in the belief that there are simple, if not simple-minded, solutions to even the most complex of problems. And they do not learn from bad experiences. Managers fail to diagnose the failures of the fads they adopt; they do not understand them. […] Those at the top feel obliged to pretend to omniscience, and therefore refuse to learn anything new even if the cost of doing so is success." (Russell L Ackoff, "A Lifetime Of Systems Thinking", Systems Thinker, 1999)

"The manager [...] is understood as one who observes the causal structure of an organization in order to be able to control it [...] This is taken to mean that the manager can choose the goals of the organization and design the systems or actions to realize those goals [...]. The possibility of so choosing goals and strategies relies on the predictability provided by the efficient and formative causal structure of the organization, as does the possibility of managers staying 'in control' of their organization's development. According to this perspective, organizations become what they are because of the choices made by their managers." (Ralph D Stacey et al, "Complexity and Management: Fad or Radical Challenge to Systems Thinking?", 2000)

"The whole way of thinking focuses attention, for most, on the designed system, but it never proves sufficient, and they [the managers] have to 'get things done anyway', almost despite the system. What they are not encouraged to do, by this very way of thinking itself, is to pay attention to the detailed interactions between them, through which they "get things done." [This] is a thoroughly stressful daily experience for people." (Ralph D. Stacey et al, "Complexity and Management: Fad or Radical Challenge to Systems Thinking?", 2000)

"Managers cannot learn from doing things right, only from doing them wrong." (Russell L Ackoff, "A Little Book of F-laws: 13 common sins of management", 2006)

"The less sure managers are of their opinions, the more vigorously they defend them. Managers do not waste their time defending beliefs they hold strongly – they just assert them. Nor do they bother to refute what they strongly believe is false." (Russell L Ackoff, "A Little Book of F-laws: 13 common sins of management", 2006)

"The lower the rank of managers, the more they know about fewer things. The higher the rank of managers, the less they know about many things." (Russell L Ackoff, "A Little Book of F-laws: 13 common sins of management", 2006)

"The other element of systems thinking is learning to influence the system with reinforcing feedback as an engine for growth or decline. [...] Without this kind of understanding, managers will hit blockages in the form of seeming limits to growth and resistance to change because the large complex system will appear impossible to manage. Systems thinking is a significant solution." (Richard L Daft, "The Leadership Experience" 4th Ed., 2008)

"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 3^rd Ed.], 2011)

♟️Strategic Management: Waste (Just the Quotes)

"Social structures are the products of social synergy, i.e., of the interaction of different social forces, all of which, in and of themselves, are destructive, but whose combined effect, mutually checking, constraining, and equilibrating one another, is to produce structures. The entire drift is toward economy, conservatism, and the prevention of waste. Social structures are mechanisms for the production of results, and the results cannot be secured without them. They are reservoirs of power." (James Q Dealey & Lester F Ward, "A Text-book of Sociology", 1905)

"The true nature of the universal principle of synergy pervading all nature and creating all the different kinds of structure that we observe to exist, must now be made clearer. Primarily and essentially it is a process of equilibration, i.e., the several forces are first brought into a state of partial equilibrium. It begins in collision, conflict, antagonism, and opposition, and then we have the milder phases of antithesis, competition, and interaction, passing next into a modus vivendi, or compromise, and ending in collaboration and cooperation. […] The entire drift is toward economy, conservatism, and the prevention of waste." (James Q Dealey & Lester F Ward, "A Text-book of Sociology", 1905)

"Motion study is the science of eliminating wastefulness resulting from using unnecessary, ill-directed, and inefficient motions. The aim of motion study is to find and perpetuate the scheme of least waste methods of labor." (Frank B Gilbreth, "Primer of scientific management", 1912) 

"The greatest misunderstandings occur as to the aims of scientific management. Its fundamental aim is the elimination of waste, the attainment of worth-while desired results with the least necessary amount of time and effort. Scientific management may, and often does, result in expansion, but its primary aim is conservation and savings, making an adequate use of every ounce of energy of any type that is expended." (Frank B Gilbreth, "Applied Motion Study: A Collection of Papers on the Efficient Method to Industrial Preparedness", 1917)

"Every business has its own particular sort of rat holes, through which its profits are carried piecemeal, and in quantities hardly noticeable at the time, but which aggregate thousands every year. The best way to plug these sources of loss is by accumulating data in regard to them and then keeping this data prominently before the executive."  (Allan C Haskell, "How to Make and Use Graphic Charts", 1919)

"Much of the waste in business is due to lack of information. And when the information is available, waste often occurs because of lack of application or because of misapplication." (John R Riggleman & Ira N Frisbee, "Business Statistics", 1938)

"But waste is often hard to find. The costs of not-doing tend to be hidden in the figures. […] Waste runs high in any business. Man, after all, is not very efficient. Special efforts to find waste are therefore always necessary." (Peter F Drucker, "Managing for Results: Economic Tasks and Risk-taking Decisions", 1964)

"Autonomation [..] performs a dual role. It eliminates overproduction, an important waste in manufacturing, and prevents the production of defective products. To accomplish this, standard work procedures, corresponding to each player's ability, must be adhered to at all times." (Taiichi Ohno, "Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production", 1978)

"When thinking about the absolute elimination of waste, keep the following two points in mind: (1) Improving efficiency makes sense only when it is tied to cost reduction. To achieve this, we have to start producing only the things we need using minimum manpower. (2) Look at the efficiency of each operator and of each line. Then look at the operators as a group, and then at the efficiency of the entire plant (all the lines). Efficiency must be improved at each step and, at the same time, for the plant as a whole." (Taiichi Ohno, "Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production", 1978)

"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)

"Managers often try to give others the feeling that they are participating in the decision process. When a manager involves people in a problem for which he has adequate information and clear criteria for making an acceptable decision, he is engaging in pseudoconsultation. When he involves others in lengthy discussions of trivial problems, he is engaging in pseudoparticipation. Most people recognize these ceremonies as a waste of time." (Dale E Zand, "Information, Organization, and Power", 1981)

"Why waste knowledge? […] No company can afford to waste knowledge. Failure of management to breakdown barriers between activities [...] is one way to waste knowledge. People that are not working together are not contributing their best to the company. People as they work together, feeling secure in the job reinforce their knowledge and efforts. Their combined output, when they are working together, is more than the sum of their separate. " (W Edwards Deming," Quality, Productivity and Competitive Position", 1982)

"Whether you are big or small, or face a high or low potential for crisis, a day devoted to discussing company business is never wasted." (Wheeler L Baker, "Crisis Management: A Model For Managers", 1993)

"[Corporate programming] is often done to the point where the individual is completely submerged in corporate 'culture' with no outlet for unique talents and skills. Corporate practices can be directly hostile to individuals with exceptional skills and initiative in technical matters. I consider such management of technical people cruel and wasteful." ( Bjarne Stroustrup, ["The Problem with Programming", MIT Technology Review, [interview] ] 2006)

✏️Karl G Karsten - Collected Quotes

"All of this information might be useful and even, for certain purposes, necessary. It is, so to speak, the statistical data of the question. But it yields no picture. A map or a globe gives us this mental picture almost in a flash. And that is precisely the use and service of a chart." (Carl Snyder, [in Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925] 1923)

"A circular, like a square, area varies with the square of its linear measurements. If you make the radius of one circle twice as great as the radius of the other, the first area will be four times as great as the first. If you make the areas proportionate, the radii must be in the relation of 1 to the square root of 2. Both circle and square require the more or less tedious computation of square roots and repay this labor with inaccurate and ambiguous results." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"A curve cannot, however, always be used in the place of a bar-chart, for the line which connects the various points implies that the data itself can be considered connected. Much data can not be so considered. A careful inspection of the data will soon show whether it is connected or not, for the stubs of connected data always form a variable." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"A further detail of the 100% bar and its labelling, is the scale. This should generally be in hundredths or percents. The data may be entirely in absolute quantities, but nevertheless the scale should show percentages. To prevent the confusion of scale and divisions of the bar, the scale should be outside the bar, and the best practice seems to be to indicate the scale by little notches or short perpendicular lines dropped below the bar, from its lower edge." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"A quantity can always be illustrated by a straight line, or, as it is commonly called, a 'bar'. Bars are the simplest and often the best form of erate The total length of the line then represents the total value of the quantity. When we speak of a line in charting, we do not mean an imaginary straight line having neither width nor depth, for that would be invisible and could not, of course, be actually used in illustrations. In its place we use the bar, with a visible width (and the actual depth or thickness of a layer of ink). But it is still proper to speak of this bar as being a line or one-dimension chart, for its width and thickness are constants, necessary to give visibility to the line, and its length alone is significant." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"A series ot quantities or values can be most simply and often best shown by a series of corresponding lines or bars. All bars being drawn against one and the same scale, their lengths vary with the amounts which they represent." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"Another principle which will quickly appeal to your common sense, is the rule that when zero is real, the zero-line should be extra heavy to make it prominent. Remember that it takes the place of the floor or lower end of the bars in the bar-chart. It should stand out, therefore, in such a way that the reader can easily grasp its significance and compare with it the heights of the points on the curve. The rule is particularly important in cases where the chart extends down below the zero line into the negative side in order to show negative and positive values. On the same principle the 100% line, when it occurs in a chart, should be similarly heavy as it also may be considered a base for zero points, being the point of zero loss or gain. In fact, the rule may be extended to all cases of lines showing significant constant values, and the zero line should not be heavy, unless it has a special significance." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"Bar-charts are most flexible and can be varied to suit the individual whims of the maker. In general, however, there is one style or form which will be found most satisfactory. It consists of a horizontal grouping of bars alongside of the data. The chart is arranged in tabular form, with items or stubs in  a column to the left, with figures in a column beside the stubs and with bars in a column beside the figures. Several columns of figures are sometimes desirable, just as in the table of data, to show sources or original figures from which the charted figures are obtained. In any case, the bars should represent the most important set or column of figures, and there should be normally but one column of bars."(Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"Having confessed so little patience with the doctrine of the incomprehensible per se, we have naturally sought to empty the entire bag of tricks, and to tell the whole story of the chart in the simplest words that we command. Our belief has been that it is a lesser sin to be too easily understood than never understood at all. But at the same time, we have sought to make the story full and complete." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"Having prepared your data, you will next decide upon a 'scale’ or ratio of reduction to use in the drawing, that is, what value or distance on the actual floor shall be represented by each space or distance between lines on the paper. It is important to pick a scale which is neither too large nor too small, so that the drawing will be the right size on the sheet." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"In all chart-making, the material to be shown must be accurately compiled before it can be charted. For an understanding of the classification chart, we must delve somewhat into the mysteries of the various methods of classification and indexing. The art of classifying calls into play the power of visualizing a 'whole' together with all its 'parts'. Even in the most exact science, it is not always easy to break up a whole into a complete set of the distinct, mutually exclusive parts which together exactly compose it." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"In fact, it can be laid down as a general rule that both the compound and the multiple bar-charts are too elaborate and complicated. A chart is always better the simpler it is, and we should make strong efforts to simplify these charts, and if possible reduce them to simple bar-charts. It usually pays well for sacrifices we make in this way, in legibility and interest to the reader, and after all, the chart of this type 1s generally directed at a reader, rather than at the maker." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"In short, the pie-chart appears to be a two-dimension (area) chart used for one-dimension data. The fact is, however, that, as in the case of the 100% bar, the area of the chart varies directly with one dimension, the other dimension being constant. In the 100% bar the width of the bar was constant in the 100% circle the radius must be constant for all circles compared. Then the area of the segments varies directly with their arcs or angles and the chart has but one significant dimension. It is only an apparent exception to the rule." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"In short, the rule that no more dimensions or axes should be used in the chart than the data calls for, is fundamental. Violate this rule and you bring down upon your head a host of penalties. In the first place, you complicate your computing processes, or else achieve a grossly deceptive chart. If your chart becomes deceptive, it has defeated its purpose, which was to represent accurately. Unless, of course, you intended to deceive, in which case we are through with you and leave you to Mark Twain’s mercies. If you make your chart accurate, at the cost of considerable square or cube root calculating, you still have no hope, for the chart is not clear; your reader is more than likely to misunderstand it. Confusion, inaccuracy and deception always lie in wait for you down the path departing from the principle we have discussed - and one of them is sure to catch you." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"In short, the scales on which a curve is drawn can affect very much our impressions of the data by magnifying or minimizing the apparent movements of the curve itself. Of course, this does not mean that the relative height from the base-line of the various points on the curve have been altered. If you have been careful to show the base-line always, the base-line itself will approach nearer to the curve as the vertical scale is reduced and the wiggles are flattened out, and will recede farther from the curve as the vertical scale is enlarged and the wiggles are exaggerated. But it means that the oscillation or fluctuation of the curve will have been made to appear more violent or milder according as either of the scales is changed. And it therefore behooves us to give serious thought to the matter of scales before’ we determine upon them finally for any particular chart. As a matter of fact, we may have to try out several combinations of scales before we find one which gives just the right amount of emphasis to curve fluctuations to suit us." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"In the labelling of the pie-chart, you will furthermore encounter typographical difficulties. It is not ordinarily a good thing to make a reader crane his neck at various angles to read writing along every point of the compass, so you should not, as so many do, write on radii from the center of the circle. On the other hand, unless the chart and its segments are very large as compared with the size of the printing, you will introduce tricky optical illusions if you write all labels in the same directions inside the segments." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"Moreover in the pipe-organ cr vertical-bar chart, we first encounter labelling or data difficulties. And if there is one motto which we should like to print at the bottom of every page in bold-face type, as do the publishers of other valuable reference-books, it is this: 'Never separate your chart from its data'. On the contrary, incorporate the data in the chart. For a chart without its data is a poor lost thing indeed. And the unhappy reader wishing to know what it means must hunt  and hunt and hunt till he locates the particular information in some distant table. As a matter of fact, he won’t do it, for before he has found his data he has lost his interest in the matter, and then what good is your chart." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"Most of the good things in this world involve some sacrifice. Curves are no exception. In a curve the direct visible connection between the curve itself and the zero line, or x-axis, is sacrificed. As time goes on and you become more and more used to the curve chart, you will begin to think of its values as in some mysterious manner floating disembodied along the connecting line which forms the curve. You will be tempted to forget that the quantities rest very substantially upon the floor (base line, zero line, x-axis or whatever you want to call it), and that it is only their tops which reach the points plotted in the curve. And forgetting this, you will try to save space by omitting the zero line and lower part of the chart, and by showing only that small portion or band of the chart through which the plotted curve travels." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"Multiple curves are far better than multiple bar charts. A number of curves wiggling across the page at the tops of invisible bars are eminently more satisfactory than actual bars interlarded. In the first place, comparison of several series of data is greatly facilitated in curves - because each set has been condensed and simplified into a single line. There is no difficulty in comparing values of each series with each other. In the second place, such a comparison is more accurate in curves because all similar points on various sets or series have been brought together upon a single vertical line."  (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"Note also, and this is important, that if through standing too close you should take a picture showing only the upper ends of the upright boards, but not their full lengths, you would consider the resulting picture not only a failure but actually deceptive. In other words, you must not omit the zero-line or base-line. While you would succeed in showing the variation of the top ends more clearly you would no longer have comparable lengths." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"Now figures are not in themselves necessarily dry and dull - in fact the figures of your bank-account may be very engrossing to you. But figures on uninteresting subjects are a sure cure for insomnia, to all of us. And it goes without saying that if the figures are not of consequence, the chart of these figures will deserve equally little attention. The point is that a chart is as weak as its own data, and a chart-maker must carefully weigh and consider his data before permitting himself the pleasure of illustrating them with a chart." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"The advantage of the pie-chart is psychological. It instantly commands the reader’s attention. A circle is, of all geometrical patterns, the easiest resting spot for the eye. The fact is well known to advertisers, who frequently use circles and circular outlines to draw attentica to their advertisements. Hence if your chart is designed for publication, or for presenta tion to readers whose attention may be easily diverted, you will find the pie-chart a powerful means for presenting your facts. Attention will be focused upon it at once, and it is as simple to understand as its name - far too simple for anyone to misunderstand. Because it is circular, there is no question but that it represents a whole and the various slices of the pie belong to their respective items."  (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"The chief value of the 'pipe-organ char' [aka bar chart] as it is sometimes called, lies in the realistic picture it gives of quantities. From a base line these quantities are seen to rise the full length of the bars, as so much substantial material stacked neatly in piles where we can compare them. We view them from the ‘level or floor on which they are piled. We do not have to climb up and get a bird’s-eye view of them as in the ordinary bar-chart, where we seem to be looking down upon rows and rows of goods, but we see them from a natural view-point. Nor do we rely upon an arbitrary arrangement by which their left ends have been brought together as in the bar-chart, but we know instantly that if they are piled up, it is their tops which we must watch. The pipe-organ chart finds instant response in our minds, and appeals to us as both logical and natural. A child can comprehend it." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"The disadvantages of the pie-chart are many. It is worthless for study and research purposes. In the first place, the human eye cannot easily compare as to length the various arcs about the circle, lying as they do in different directions. In the second place, the human eye is not naturally skilled at comparing angles - those angles at the center of the circle, formed by the various rays or radii and subtending the various arcs. In the third place, the human eye is not an expert judge of comparative sizes of areas, especially those as irregular as the segments of parts of the circle. There is no way by which the parts of this round unit can be compared so accurately and quickly as the parts of a straight line or bar. Moreover, when, as frequently happens, several pie-charts are shown together, the various slices in one chart cannot be so easily compared with the corresponding slices in the next, as can the various parts of one 100% bar with corresponding parts of another bar." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"The division of a 'whole' into its 'parts' is logically one of the first steps in any analysis. Usually the graph illustrating this division belongs at the beginning of a statistical report. Thus, if your report covers the sales of the company, your first chart would break up total sales into the individual sales for each line or for each district. The remainder of the report, treating of details of the various 'parts' (e.g., lines or districts) will then follow a summary chart which has established their relative importance." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"The greatest contribution to chart-making, from any single source, is the Gantt Progress Chart. This chart is, unquestionably, the most powerful graphic device for business and for all executive and managerial purposes. While the description has been rather full, as given herein, it is by no means complete; and the Gantt charting methods, in all their co-ordinated ramifications, constitute an independent system of accounting and of executive control,in this [...]" (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", [preface] 1925)

"The technique of bar-charts is so simple and they are so very effective, that they should be used freely in printed text-matter. No drawing or plates are needed. Printers have 'rules' as they call them, which can be used to make solid bars, and these rules can easily be set up together with the type. The scale and field can be omitted and the bars alone will effectively tell the story of the main figures in the table. The combined table and chart can be used in printed text just as well as the table alone." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"These apparently arbitrary rules of thumb are justified only so long as they serve to produce the best results. Your real purpose is to show the data most clearly and simply, either to yourself or to someone else. The chart is a window, as it were, through which the reader looks out upon an illuminating picture of the facts he is considering. Through this window he sees, if you like, a chain of mountains, whose height tells him the values or quantities he is considering. That he may see them to the best advantage, the window must be low enough for him to see the base of the mountain-range and high enough for him to see at least some sky above the highest peak. In general, the best view of the mountains would show neither too much nor too little clear sky above. And if the window is crossed with a framework for small window-panes, he can further judge of heights by the crisscross window-pane lines. Your curve is the silhouette of that mountain-range, your field the tiny window-pane outlines, and you, the chart-maker, must use your own judgment and artistic sense to place the reader’s chair near or far, high or low, in front of that window, to give him the clearest view." s it were, through which the reader looks out upon an illu- minating picture of the facts he is considering. Through this window he sees, if you like, a chain of mountains, whose height tells him the values or quantities he is considering. That he may see them to the best advantage, the window must be low enough for him to see the base of the mountain-range" (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"This practice of omitting the zero line is all too common, but it is not for that reason excusable. The amputated chart is a deceptive one, tempting the average reader to compare the heights of points on the curve from the false bottom of the amputated chart-field, rather than from the true zero line, far below and invisible. A curve-chart without a zero line is in general no whit less of a printed lie, than a vertical bar-chart in which the lower part of the bars themselves are cut away. The representation of comparative sizes has been distorted and the fluctuations (changes in value) exaggerated." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"Throughout your study of charts you will find some which are more useful for popular consumption than others, but you will not find many which are more purely popular in appeal than the 100% circle or pie diagram. For analytical purposes it has nothing to recommend it, but for sensational values it is in general without an equal." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"To make a bar-chart popular, knock it over flat on its side, so that the bars stand up on end. Simple, isn’t it? But that’s the rule. There being nothing more to discuss in the matter of making popular bar-charts, we are tempted to close the dis- cussion at this point and produce a pleasant surprise to all. But the vertical bar-chart [aka column chart] is rich in suggestions for the higher forms of charts which we are approaching, and it deserves a close study." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"We have so consistently inveighed against the use of areas to illustrate quantities that the reader will indeed be surprised at some coming retractions. [...] But the fact is that we now propose to turn to advantage the very feature of areas which has previously been their greatest fault. [...] We now come to data in which we wish to show simultaneously three ratios or sets of ratios, one of which is always the product of the other two. In other words, we wish to show two factors or sets of factors and their product." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)

"When several curves are shown upon the same chart, it is often desirable to use different scales for them. That is, the same horizontal lines may be given two or even more different values for different curves. But even in these cases, it is better to place both scales, once and for all, at the left hand side. The practise of placing one of these scales at the right hand side, and another at the left hand side, has little to recommend it. Theoretically, at least, the left hand end of your chart is normally the y-axis itself, and the scale or ‘scales should logically be attached immediately thereto. In practice this logical position is justified." (Karl G Karsten, "Charts and Graphs", 1925)