Systems

To manage a system effectively, you might focus on the interactions of the parts rather than their behavior taken separately. - Russell L. Ackoff


If you are building the system; no. If you are staffing the system; yes.

Decisive Leadership

If I had to sum up in one word what makes a good manager, I'd say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act. - Lee Iacocca


Businesses should be dictatorships, not democracies.

Innovation Clues

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower. - Steve Jobs


And one isn't any good at doing the others job.

Purpose and Principle

Purpose and principle, clearly understood and articulated, and commonly shared, are the genetic code of any healthy organization. To the degree that you hold purpose and principles in common among you, you can dispense with command and control. People will know how to behave in accordance with them, and they'll do it in thousands of unimaginable, creative ways. The organization will become a vital, living set of beliefs. - Dee Hock


Whenever you gather others around you to advance a goal make sure they share your purpose and principles.

Managed Destiny

Lots of folks confuse bad management with destiny. - Kin Hubbard


The wise always make their own destiny.

Go Team Go!

The speed of the boss is the speed of the team. - Lee Iacocca

  Take a walk with a prospective team leader before you hire them for the job.

Your Discrection

One can pass on responsibility, but not the discretion that goes with it. - Benvenuto Cellini

  Why small businesses often fail when management is passed on and, sometimes, why they flourish.

Folowing Elephants

You don't let the guy with the broom control how many elephants are in the parade. - Merlin Mann

Listen, but don't automatically act on others opinions.

Commander

The American President resembles the commander of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek. - Henry B. Adams


Presidents of the USA or of a business must have the same platform. Ascendancy; a plan; a goal.

Candle Power

It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. - Eleanor Roosevelt


Make it a rule: He that curses the darkness has to provide the candle.

Rank

Managers want authority. Leaders take responsibility. - Seth Godin


The difference between a Drill Sargent and a General.

Expect Excellence

The company's most urgent task is to learn to welcome, beg for, demand - innovation from everyone - Tom Peters


Innovation and excellence.

Managing Doves

Managing is like holding a dove in your hand. Squeeze too hard and you kill it, not hard enough and it flies away. - Tommy Lasorda 


And not all doves are the same.

Open Your Gift

Everyone is gifted - but some people never open their package. - Unknown


Management's job.

You're Hired

Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works. - Steve Jobs


No matter how pretty it is if it doesn't work, it's crap. If it works like a dream but is ugly, it is just ugly. If it is pretty and works, hire 'em.

Tell Me About Your Future

You can't base your life on the past or the present. You have to tell me about your future. - Chuck Palahniuk


Add that to your job interview repertoire.

Fired With Enthusiasm

If you aren't fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm. - Vince Lombardi


Or, how to build a winning team.


(Other posts on Work)

Discipline Must Come Through Liberty

Discipline must come through liberty. . . . We do not consider an individual disciplined only when he has been rendered as artificially silent as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined. - Maria Montessori


Though she was thinking about the education of children, I think that the same is worth considering about employees.


(Other posts on Management)

Good Partners

A good horse and a good rider are only so in mutual trust. - H.M.E


Same with an employer and employee, marriage, or any other partnership.


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Priority Management

Don't be a time manager, be a priority manager. Cut your major goals into bite-sized pieces. Each small priority or requirement on the way to ultimate goal become a mini goal in itself. - Denis Waitley


This is an excellent approach when managing employees.


(Other posts on Management)