Quotes & Sayings About Business Management

I view it as a real competition. We're in a business where, you know what, there's no babies here. You go out, win the job and take it. I've been told by management, for the most part, that we're going to play the best people. Obviously, you've got to consider stuff like contracts - that's a reality of the game. But still, when it gets down to it, we're going to try and pick the guy that deserves to win the job. — Willie Randolph

As a manager the important thing is not what happens when you are there, but what happens when you are not there — Ken Blanchard

A Lesson on Elementary, Worldly Wisdom As It Relates To Investment Management & Business — Charlie Munger

In the business world, there is no gray. Either you are black, or you are white-washed. — Sameer Kamat

We select such investments on a long-term basis, weighing the same factors as would be involved in the purchase of 100% of an operating business: (1) favorable long-term economic characteristics; (2) competent and honest management; (3) purchase price attractive when measured against the yardstick of value to a private owner; and (4) an industry with which we are familiar and whose long-term business characteristics we feel competent to judge. — Warren Buffett

It's for management to enthuse & motivate employees towards excellence in service; the profit incentive doesn't last — Phil Harding

Inspirational leadership connects to a highly motivated workforce which, in turn, means inspirational results — Nigel Crouch

Many small businesses are doomed from day one, not from competition or the economy, but from the ignorance of their owners ... their destiny is already decided because they have no idea how a business should be operated. — William Manchee

Leaving wasn't a personal thing where I intentionally wanted to stick it to management or anyone. This is business. I felt I should have been rewarded for helping the Indians turn around a half century of losing. It was a shame they decided to treat me that way, after all I did for them. I helped this team go from one-hundred six losses to basically one-hundred six wins and into the World Series. And what do I get for it? Nothing. — Albert Belle

We believe responsible business can be profitable business — Stuart Rose

Economics as currently presented in textbooks and taught in the classroom does not have much to do with business management, and still less with entrepreneurship. — Ronald Coase

But such people (Moderate Conservatives) aren't liberal. What they are is corporate. Their habits and opinions owe far more to the standards of courtesy and taste that prevail within the white-collar world than they do to Franklin Roosevelt and the United Mine Workers. We live in a time, after all, when hard-nosed bosses compose awestruck disquisitions on the nature of 'change,' punk rockers dispense leadership secrets, shallow profundities about authenticity sell luxury cars, tech billionaires build rock'n'roll musuems, management theorists ponder the nature of coolness, and a former lyricist fro the Grateful Dead hail the dawn of New Economy capitalism from the heights of Davos. Coversvatives may not understand why, but business culture had melded with counterculture for reasons having a great deal to do with business culture's usual priority - profit. — Thomas Frank

Don't focus all your time and effort on creating the templates & perfecting the documents. Answering key product questions is more critical. — Brian Lawley

The way in which we manage the business of getting and spending is closely tied to our personal philosophy of living. We begin to develop this philosophy long before we have our first dollar to spend; and unless we are thinking people, our attitude toward money management may continue through the years to be tinged with the ignorance and innocence of childhood. — Catherine Crook De Camp

Virtually every company will be going out and empowering their workers with a certain set of tools, and the big difference in how much value is received from that will be how much the company steps back and really thinks through their business processes, thinking through how their business can change, how their project management, their customer feedback, their planning cycles can be quite different than they ever were before. — Bill Gates

Thanks to the competence, love of God, our country's security and stability, endowed wealth, integrated infrastructure and quality services, the U.A.E. turned into the world's renowned destination for tourism, investment and business management: the interface of choice for hosting major cultural events, artistic and sports, in the world. — Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan

For individuals and organizations alike, a reputation is far easier to destroy than it is to build. — Andrew Griffin

Management is a far more homely business than its would be scientists suggest, more closely allied to cookery than any other human activity. Like cooking, it rests on a degree of organisation and on adequate resources. But just as no two chefs run their kitchens the same way, so no two managements are the same. — Robert Heller

As a multisport athlete, I was always fascinated with competition and how to win. At HBS and later at the Harvard Department of Economics, I was drawn to the field of competition and strategy because it tackles perhaps the most basic question in both business management and industrial economics: What determines corporate performance? — Michael Porter

I'm OK with firing people when they fuck up, but canning them when they've done nothing wrong - that's painful. [on the layoffs needed after 9/11 hit the business] — Marcus Samuelsson

With more than half the population now checking their account balances more often as a direct result of the downturn, and with more of us comparing prices in virtually every market, it is natural to turn budget management into a skill, an accomplishment, a badge of lifestyle success. — Joe Staton

The least important person in a business is the most important person in a business. — Jennifer Ho-Dougatz

Good environmentalism is good economics — Barber Conable

This idea of anticipation is key to investing and to business generally. You can't wait for an opportunity to become obvious. You have to think, "Here's what other people and companies have done under certain circumstances. Now, under these new circumstances, how is this management likely to behave?" — Edward Lampert

Unprofessionalism damages the business reputation and tarnishes the trust of society. — Pearl Zhu

Measure what is important, don't make important what you can measure — Robert McNamara

There are some key elements to business being a success, and that's a smart visionary and great management behind the people that are going to build it. — Rob Dyrdek

Innovation happens at the intersection of people, process, technology, customers, and business ecosystem. — Pearl Zhu

Organizational success comes when IT and business act from "IT vs. business" to IT is business" - a true partnership. — Pearl Zhu

Culture is like water in the sea; it can either keep the business ship afloat or drag it down and sink it. — Pearl Zhu

When I moved into management, it was all about managing people and keeping them motivated - I didn't use sales metrics to drive my business. Now, everything comes from the numbers. — Jim McDonough

Corporations are social institutions. If they don't serve society, they have no business existing — Henry Mintzberg

Culture is what happens when the managers are not around. — Pearl Zhu

The goal of agility measure is to keep track of the most value-driven factors to lead business success. — Pearl Zhu

The art of wealth-getting which consists in household management, on the one hand, has a limit; the unlimited acquisition of wealth is not its business. And therefore, in one point of view, all riches must have a limit; nevertheless, as a matter of fact, we find the opposite to be the case; for all getters of wealth increase their hard coin without limit. — Aristotle.

Cost-effective, attractive to business partners, environmentally friendly, easy access to a wide range of guidance and support - it makes good business sense to implement and maintain a robust and effective environmental management system — Elliot Morley

In the UK what we've found is that even businesses which prided themselves already on their efficient management find that a really beady-eyed scrutiny of their resource management, with an eye to environmental best-practice and long term sustainability, produce fresh efficiency and fresh savings that actually shock those in the company — Margaret Beckett

It is easy to launch a project if you have no clue about the cost and schedule. — Gerry Geek

A good manager instills staff with self-confidence, teaches them to believe in themselves and helps them to realise their brilliance. Do not ever treat your staff with disrespect. It is competent until proven incompetent; not incompetent til proven competent. — Miya Yamanouchi

A company at the top of its game has accumulated a number of rules of thumb - implicit assumptions and beliefs about what has been central to its success. New technologies and business models belie or change some of those assumptions, but they only seem sensible if the management team can become aware of those implicit assumptions and mind-sets and suspend them for a moment to contemplate the change. It's very hard to do that with the inherited wisdom, experience, and lore of a company. This is why the failures of incumbents to capture the benefits of disruptive innovations are a result not of bad managers, but of good managers practicing what they have done best. Incremental innovations can quickly be scaled and incorporated. Disruptive innovations require changes in customer sets, business models, or performance metrics that are no longer consistent with what led to success in the past. — Stefan Heck

The subordinate's job is not to reform or reeducate the boss, not to make him conform to what the business schools or the management book say bosses should be like. It is to enable a particular boss to perform as a unique individual. — Peter Drucker

Dr. Prem, a world renowned speaker delivers flawless speeches on various topics including leadership, public speaking, business management and global healthcare. Dr. Prem is well informed and his speeches are well researched. — David Nelson

Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction begin with toddlers - a prize for the best Halloween costume, grades in school, gold stars - and on up through the university. On the job, people, teams, and divisions are ranked, reward for the top, punishment for the bottom. Management by Objectives, quotas, incentive pay, business plans, put together separately, division by division, cause further loss, unknown and unknowable. — Peter M. Senge

To make a decision, all you need is authority. To make a good decision, you also need knowledge, experience, and insight. — Denise Moreland

The biggest enemy of management is indifference. It's when people don't give a damn — Carlos Ghosn

Manager! Have brain - use it! — Gerry Geek

It is time to recognize conventional MBA programs for what they are - or else to close them down. They are specialized training in the functions of business, not general educating in the practice of management. — Henry Mintzberg

From the systems point of view, it is evident that one of the main obstacles to organizational change is the - largely unconscious - embrace by business leaders of the mechanistic approach to management. — Fritjof Capra

Imagine going to work every day to do only and exactly what you love!! All the work gets done because of the abundant diversity of your team. Different skills, interests and talents are woven together into a whole that is much greater than the sum of the parts! — Denise Moreland

P R E S I D E N T Y O S H I D A'S T E N S P A R T A N R UlE S Hideo Yoshida's quest for management excellence was no doubt driven by his visions for Japanese marketing and media, but also by an overall worry about Japan's economic prospects after World War II. As a result, he developed a set of business and work principles, or rules, which he called the "Ten Spartan Rules": difficult work.5. Once you begin a task, complete it. Never give up.6. Lead and set an example for your fellow workers.7. Set goals for yourself to ensure a constant sense of purpose.8. Move with confidence. It gives your work force and substance.9. At all times, challenge yourself to think creatively and find new solutions.10. When confrontation is necessary, don't shy away from it. Confrontation is often necessary to achieve progress. These traditional work rules still guide Dentsu's employees, and are carried around in their notebooks — Anonymous

We are very fortunate to have Matt Carter join the Apollo board. Matt brings deep management, operations, marketing and international business expertise to the company, along with a track record of growing and strengthening well-known consumer brands. — Peter Sperling

Good wages are pro business, since they reduce turnover, increase morale, produce better-skilled employees, and improve productivity. — Jim Hightower

What's Management up to?" I whispered to Bennett.
"My guess is a new acronym," he whispered. "Departmental Unification Management Business." He wrote down the ltters on his legal pad. "D.U.M.B. — Connie Willis

Everyone is a business person. You must be in the business of managing your time. Managing your time means managing your life. Good time managers are good life managers, and vice versa. — Archibald Marwizi

The best discussion of trouble in boardroom and business office is found in newspapers' own financial pages and speeches by journalists in management jobs. — Russell Baker

At least since the time of In Search of Excellence in 1980, its first blockbuster bestseller, management literature has rejected the model of a business organization as a machine and its people as robots. Managers are exhorted to stop managing and start leading, to empower people, and to master something called "change management." The volume of the volumes has become cacophonous. However, many managers remain rather confused, as there is little consensus about how empowerment is actually supposed to work. — Stephen Bungay

If I had learned more about business ahead of time, I would have been shaped into believing that it was only about finances and quality management. — Anita Roddick

Move away from the mid-set that the fulfillment of the organization's mission, vision, and strategic plan is only the work of leaders. — Sue Tetzlaff

The original and brilliant idea of an MBA was the opportunity for students to study the theory and application of business and management principles. — Warren Bennis

The general systems of money management today require people to pretend to do something they can't do and like something they don't. It's a funny business because on a net basis, the whole investment management business together gives no value added to all buyers combined. That's the way it has to work. Mutual funds charge two percent per year and then brokers switch people between funds, costing another three to four percentage points. The poor guy in the general public is getting a terrible product from the professionals. — John C. Bogle

Instead of going back and looking at the question, people tinker with the solution, trying to make it fit."-Claude Legrande ... "The consequences of failing to do that [in our personal lives] are the same as those facing businesses - even more dire, perhaps, because what's being squandered isn't just the potential for profits. It's the potential for happiness. We miss opportunities to innovate and to make positive changes in our lives when we aren't willing to question ourselves. — Amanda Lang

IT has to provide both business and technological insight into how they bring success to the company as a whole transparently, holistically, and continually. — Pearl Zhu

Management teams aren't good at asking questions. In business school, we train them to be good at giving answers. — Clayton Christensen

I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."
[From the Preface] — C.S. Lewis

It is a tricky business to know when you should set goals and objectives in order to achieve a focus, and when you would be better off dealing with the acceptance and management of your current reality so you can later step into new directions and responsibilities with greater stability and clarity. Only you will know the answer to that, and only in the moment. — David Allen

Management works in the system; leadership works on the system. — Stephen Covey

With joint-stock corporations, investors can place bets on the success of many different companies, without having to play a central management role in any one of them. This allows investors to diversify their financial holdings. It also allows them to capture profits on their investments, without having to get involved in the dirty, troublesome business of actually running a company. — Jim Stanford

Lack of courage or means often deters the European woman from more independent business activity, and this in spite of increasing freedom to choose her occupation, in spite of brilliant examples of successful undertakings of women, in photography, hotel or boarding-house management, dress-making, etc. — Ellen Key

Delegating your accountabilities is abdication — Michael E. Gerber

If existing management want to keep their jobs when the basics of the business are undergoing profound change, they must adopt an outsider's intellectual objectivity. They must do what they need to do to get through the strategic inflection point unfettered by any emotional attachment to the past. That's what Gordon and I had to do when we figuratively went out the door, stomped out our cigarettes and returned to do the job. — Andrew S. Grove

We must recognize that "happy" is not a business goal. Service providers pursue "happy." Leaders pursue growth, competitive advantage, mission enhancement, and cost management. — Tina Nunno

Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done. — Peter Drucker

Premium will increasingly be defined in terms of sustainability and environmental compatibility — Norbert Reithofer

It is far better to have 10,000 Facebook friends who are in the same category or aligned with your values or a common inter- est than 100,000 random robot followers from around the world. — Brian E. Boyd Sr.

The best lessons I've been taught is that you should definitely have a plan. Try to imagine yourself six months in advance, and always save your money. Because there are always going to be unintended expenses that are going to come up. Surprises always happen. — K. Guillory

A SWOT analysis involves asking, What are our strengths and weaknesses? What are our opportunities? What are the threats? — Amanda Lang

Companies like GE and Procter & Gamble have been in business for a long time. Over decades or a century you're bound to figure out a management structure that works. — Barry Diller

Management creates an empowered state of mind in the organization by treating employees as part-owners of the business and expecting them to act like owners. — Leonard L. Berry

Don't buy into the campaign that people don't like change. We are built for it. — Stacy Feiner

The overall organizational health needs to be measured via employee engagement, culture readiness, business agility, and customer-centricity, etc. — Pearl Zhu

The American business man cannot consider his work done when he views the income balance in black at the end of an accounting period. It is necessary for him to trace the social incidence of the figures that appear in his statement and prove to the general public that his management has not only been profitable in the accounting sense but salutary in terms of popular benefits. — Colby Mitchell Chester

I want to create a management company for people like me so that they don't have to give up the way they present [themselves], they just have someone to help them keep their business afloat. — Ester Dean

The potential of this nation is as boundless as the imagination and drive of the American people ... Quality management is not just a step. It must be a new style of working. Even a new style of thinking. The dedication to quality and excellence is more than good business; it's a way of life. — George H. W. Bush

Your job is not to be a fire killer. Your job is to prevent fires. — Sam Carpenter

We could cite many cases of companies' similar attempts to create new-growth platforms after the core business had matured. They follow an all-too-similar pattern. When the core business approaches maturity and investors demand new growth, executives develop seemingly sensible strategies to generate it. Although they invest aggressively, their plans fail to create the needed growth fast enough; investors hammer the stock; management is sacked; and Wall Street rewards the new executive team for simply restoring the status quo ante: a profitable but low-growth core business.4 — Clayton M Christensen

When the business grows, the person who founded it is incredibly busy. Rapid growth puts an enormous strain on a business. You outgrow your production facilities. You outgrow your management capabilities. — Peter Drucker

We all know business financial performance improves when more women are in senior levels of management and leadership. — Beth Brooke

Persons who reach the higher rungs in business management, selling, engineering, religious work, writing, acting & in every other pursuit get there by following conscientiously & continuously a plan for self-development & growth. — David J. Schwartz

In my own experience as a C.E.O., I would find myself laying awake at 3 A.M. asking questions about my business, and there weren't management books out there that could help me. — Ben Horowitz

A product which is unceremoniously wasted to landfill at end of life surely can't be considered good design! — Neil Tierney

Never hesitate to show your own staff that you need help. They need to be reminded how important they are to the process. In life and in business, we rely on each other to be responsible for individual tasks that benefit everyone. People sometimes forget how much interdependence there really is in a successful business. Learn the art of asking for help to empower and motivate others, and you will have learned a very powerful management strategy. — Georgette Mosbacher

When a writer has done the best that he can do, he should then withdraw from the book-writing business and take up an honest trade like shoe repair, cattle stealing, or screwworm management. — Edward Abbey

It's not only how much money you make. It's what you do with it that determines your financial condition. — Sandra S. Simmons

I'm a binge writer. I work in the music business fulltime, in artist management and developing songwriters and recording artists, and so juggling my job I carve out as much time as I can on the weekends. — Ruta Sepetys

Business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,
if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life. — Hortense Odlum

There are companies with management and companies with money. You can always find money. Management is the key to success in any business. — Husnu Ozyegin

I love criticism. Equitable Life went down because management wouldn't brook criticism, but if you are in business, you have to hear what's going wrong. — Peter Hargreaves

One of the most intriguing things in management and in business is the role of storytelling - people need the anecdotes to do the work that they do. — Anita Roddick

A healthy corporate culture is built through proper man-management techniques put into action, which in turn aids in shaping a peacefully coherent work environment with healthy interactions capable of drawing out the maximum potential from the employed. — Henrietta Newton Martin

In every business, in every industry, management does matter. — Michael Eisner