Kenneth E. Boulding Quotes

You can sit next to somebody on the underground, and you can look at them quite intensely, but you can never, ever know what they're wearing under their clothes.

The study of economic organization commonly proceeds as though market and administrative modes of organization were disjunct. Market organi­zation is the province of economists. Inter­nal organization is the concern of organization theory specialist. And never the twain shall meet.

The only things that evolve by themselves in an organization are disorder, friction and malperformance.

There is no name for all who participate in group decision-making or the organization which they form. I propose to call this organization the Technostructure.

Every action in company ought to be with some sign of respect to those present.

Managers have traditionally developed the skills in finance, planning, marketing and production techniques. Too often the relations with their people have been assigned a secondary role. This is too important a subject not to receive first-line attention. In this regard we could learn much from the Japanese. We must reinvest in the human side of management.

Goals may cause systematic problems for organizations due to narrowed focus, unethical behavior, increased risk taking, decreased cooperation, and decreased intrinsic motivation. Use care when applying goals in your organization.

When we have our body and mind in order, everything else will exist in the right place, in the right way. But usually, without being aware of it, we try to change something other than ourselves; we try to order things outside us. But it is impossible to organize things if you yourself are not in order. When you do things in the right way, at the right time, everything else will be organized.

Meetings are an addictive, highly self-indulgent activity that corporations and other large organizations habitually engage in only because they cannot actually masturbate.

Political controls in the sense that we think of bureaus or departments of government can never ope to produce collaboration between groups in the inner wheels of our industrial organization. It must come from inner compulsions and desires.

I am surprised at the way people seem to perceive me, and sometimes I read stories and hear things about me and I go "ugh." I wouldn't like her either. It's so unlike what I think I am or what my friends think I am.

You're so connected to people and they all know how to get to you, and everyone knows who you are, so explicitly. They think they know you. It's like, 'You really think you know me? I don't know me! How do you know I'm not different around someone else?

We use the word 'organization' to mean both the state of being organized and the groups that do the organizing.

Leadership responsibility: If you own a biz, you're the head of the org. Good or bad, your company will LOOK and ACT like you do.

Every individual in an organization is motivated by something different.

It is natural for the ordinary American when he sees something wrong to feel not only that there should be a law against it but, also that an organization should be formed to combat it.

If you see me performing, you're going, that guy is simply the most extroverted guy I've ever seen. But if you've seen me very often on a daily basis and all the while growing up, I was very, very introverted. Very introverted. So I have sort of the extremes of both of those characteristics.

Who I am on stage is very, very different to who I am in real life. But I don't see that having a sexy image when you are on stage means that you don't love God. No one knows what I'm really like from that. I like to walk around with bare feet and I don't like to comb my hair. I'm always so glammed up and so diva on stage and that's what they see. People don't understand that... No one knows my personal relationship with God and it's not up to me to prove that to anyone.

Any organization created out of fear must create fear to survive.

A Locanian having plucked all the feathers off from a nightingale and seeing what a little body it had, "surely," quoth he, "thou art all voice and nothing else.

Science, as well as technology, will in the near and in the farther future increasingly turn from problems of intensity, substance, and energy, to problems of structure, organization, information, and control.

If the CEO's behavior is 95 per cent healthy while the rest of the organization is only 50 per cent sound, it is more effective to focus on that crucial and leveraged 5 per cent that makes up the reminder of the CEO's behavior.

Sane and intelligent human beings are like all other human beings, and carefully and cautiously and diligently conceal their private real opinions from the world and give out fictitious ones in their stead for general consumption.

The outgoing and spontaneous person that the world knew while I was boxing was a persona that I created to sell tickets and promote my career. In my private life, I am quiet and reflective by nature.