Quotes on management

Good is the enemy of great.

In God we trust; all others must bring data.

Culture eats strategy for breakfast.

The first rule in decision-making is that one does not make a decision unless there is disagreement.

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.

Efficiency is concerned with doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.

The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.

Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. It is the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.

Success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know themselves — their strengths, their values, and how they best perform.

Meetings are by definition a concession to deficient organization. For one either meets or one works. One cannot do both at the same time.

There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.

There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.

What gets measured gets managed.

The goal of a manufacturing organization is to make money. And everything else we do is a means to achieve the goal.

Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare.

A bias for action — a preference for doing something — anything — rather than sending a question through cycles and cycles of analyses and committee reports.

The essence of formulating competitive strategy is relating a company to its environment.

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.

Today's problems come from yesterday's solutions.