Harvard Business School Press Quotes & Sayings

Chevron, for example, has a decision-analysis group whose members facilitate decision-framing workshops; coordinate data gathering for analysis; build and refine economic and analytical models; help project managers and decision makers interpret analyses; point out when additional information and analysis would improve a decision; conduct an assessment of decision quality; and coach decision makers. — Harvard Business School Press

Articulate each meeting's purpose (Making an announcement? Delivering a report?). Terminate the meeting once the purpose is accomplished. Follow up with short communications summarizing the discussion, spelling out new work assignments and deadlines for completing them. General Motors CEO Alfred Sloan's legendary mastery of meeting follow-up helped secure GM's industry dominance in the mid-twentieth century. — Harvard Business School Press

She built a close-knit team of talented people who bonded with one another and felt passion for the mission. Soon her group became one of the parent bank's most desirable places to work. She developed strong relationships with senior executives who helped her deal with tensions in the middle, and she communicated well and often about why her unit needed to be different. Her creativity, vision, teamwork, and persistence helped this group succeed and become a national role model, while other banks' efforts faltered. — Harvard Business School Press

Managers who aspire to be ethical must challenge the assumption that they're always unbiased and acknowledge that vigilance, even more than good intention, is a defining characteristic of an ethical manager. — Harvard Business School Press

(A good mood, incidentally, spreads most swiftly by the judicious use of humor. For — Harvard Business School Press

The key distinction between a traditional and a customer-cultivating company is that one is organized to push products and brands whereas the other is designed to serve customers and customer segments. — Harvard Business School Press

What the railroads lack is not opportunity but some of the managerial imaginativeness and audacity that made them great. — Harvard Business School Press