“A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge. ”
“A person should never be appointed to a managerial position if his vision focuses on people’s weaknesses rather than on their strengths. The person who always knows exactly what people cannot do, but never sees anything they can do, will undermine the spirit of his organization.”
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
“Doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right.”
“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.”
“Efficiency is doing the thing right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing.”
“Every enterprise is a learning and teaching institution. Training and development must be built into it on all levels.”
“If there is any one secret of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time.”
“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old.”
“If you weren’t already in this business, would you enter it today? And if not, what are you going to do about it?”
“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.”
“Long-range planning does not deal with the future decisions, but with the future of present decisions.”
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”
“Meetings are by definition a concession to a deficient organization. For one either meets or one works. One cannot do both at the same time.”
“No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it.”
“Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else requires leadership.”
“Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.”
“Results are gained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems.”
“So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.”
“Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art.”
“The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization: 1. What is our mission? 2. Who is our customer? 3. What does the customer value? 4. What are our results? 5. What is our plan?”
“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not the turbulence; it is to act with yesterday’s logic.”
“The less an organization has to do to produce results, the better it does its job.”
“The management of knowledge workers should be based on the assumption that the corporation needs them more than they need the corporation.”
“The mission of the organization has to be clear enough and big enough to provide common vision. The goals that embody it have to be clear, public, and constantly reaffirmed. Management’s first job is to think through, set, and exemplify those objectives, values, and goals. ”
“The only skill that will be important in the 21st century is the skill of learning new skills. Everything else will become obsolete over time.”
“The purpose of information is not knowledge. It is being able to take the right action.”
“The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.”
“There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all.”
“Time is the scarcest resource, and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.”
“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.”
“We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.”
“What gets measured gets managed.”