Management

“A censor is a man who knows more than he thinks you ought to.” – Granville Hicks
“A crisis always signals the end of an illusion.” – Gerald Weinberg
“A person is smart, people are stupid.” – Tommy Lee Jones (Men in Black)
“Are you here to build a career or to build an organization?” – Peter Block
“Being driven to perform – as opposed to being invited to contribute your best – can’t carry the day.”
“Bosses don’t like to be surprised, even if it’s for a good cause.”
“Businesses measure what’s easy and forget about the rest.” – Bob Lewis
“Debate & decide, don’t review & approve.”
“Don’t confuse movement with progress.” – Tom Peters
“Experience does not equate to expertise.”
“Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They do not mean to do harm… They are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.” – T. S. Eliot
“Hell, there are no rules here. We’re trying to accomplish something.” – Thomas Alva Edison
“If you are indispensable, you’re unpromotable.”
“I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.” – Douglas Adams
“In a bacon and eggs breakfast, the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed.” – Ken Schwaber
“In a healthy organization, accountability is clear, but there’s never a need to ‘hold employees accountable.'” – Bob Lewis
“Incentives multiply force, not direction.” – W. L. Livingston
“Innovation has no timeline or budget.” – Dean Kamen
“Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution.” – Clay Shirky
“Invest in a company that an idiot can run; because one day one will” – Peter Lynch
“Involvement is quite different from responsibility.” – Watts Humphrey
“It’s about the people, stupid.”
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” – Upton Sinclair
“It is less important to redistribute wealth than it is to redistribute opportunity.” – Arthur H. Vandenberg
“Man should be above systems, and not subordinate to them.” – Steve Jobs
“Merit can be bought, enthusiasm can’t.”
“Multitasking is not for serious work.” – Bjarne Stroustrup
“Networks make organizational culture and politics explicit” – Michael Schrage
“Ninety percent of what we call ‘management’ consists of making it difficult for people to get get things done” – Peter Drucker
“Not everything that counts can be counted. Not everything that can be counted counts.” – Albert Einstein.
“Organizations often behave worse than any member would.” – Fred Brooks
“Plans are nothing, planning is everything.”
“Process is important but facts, not tradition, should be used to form and improve the process.” – Lawrence Votta
“Proven and ‘state of the art’ are mutually exclusive qualities.”
“Passion and promotion are mutually exclusive.” – Tom DeMarco
“Strong-willed people love to collaborate when there’s a sharp delineation of roles, an obstructed view of the goal, and a strong commitment to quality.” – Marty Neumeier
“The principle function of most corporations is not to maximize shareholder value, but to maximize the standard of living and quality of work life of those who manage the corporation.” – Russell Ackoff
“The problem with any unwritten law is that you don’t know where to go to erase it.” – Glaser and Way
“The trouble with keeping salaries a secret is that it’s usually used as a way to avoid paying people fairly. And that’s not good for employees — or the company.” – Joel Spolsky
“The Web has evolved faster than anything human beings have created – largely because it is not a hierarchy.” – Vineet Nayer
“The world needs more leaders, not status-takers and schedule-jockeys.”
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” ~ Voltaire
“To succeed in the world it is not enough to be stupid, you must also be well-mannered.” – Voltaire
“We assume the act of describing the work somehow is equivalent to doing the work.” – Rands In Repose
“Whenever anything is being accomplished, it is being done, I have learned, by a monomaniac with a mission.” – Peter Drucker
“When everybody knows that something is so, it means that nobody knows nothin’.” – Andy Grove
“When schedules slip, it’s because there were hidden or ignored costs that were never accounted for.” – Steve McConnell
“Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.” – Bertrand Russell
“You can only measure 3% of what matters.” – W. E. Deming
“You’re trying to do 5 nines estimation with only 1 nine of information” – Walker Royce