Jed Mercurio Quotes

I don't read many business books. I read good fiction. Business is about people, so my favorite business books are anything by Dickens.

The way the British 'Office' got away with being so dark was that it only had 13 episodes. There are realistic elements that people obviously enjoy, but they don't necessarily want to relive the trials and tribulations of their average work day.

Setting is the bedrock of your story. If you choose a real-world backdrop, be certain you get your facts straight.

A big company is like trying to steer a luxury liner.

The blanket assertion that corporations are people obfuscates the complex issues at play in the changing business world. Corporation are institutions. People are people.

Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives' decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake.

As anyone who has covered the company for any length of time knows, Yahoo's record on major decision-making has been akin to a hippie commune - a lot of wrangling internally in a culture where everyone seems to have a voice and a reticence to push the button to launch.

The message is that all brilliance emanates from the top; that the worker on the floor of the store or the factory is insignificant.

If there are only three guys at the top of the organization handling things, it's the definition of a bankrupt company. In creating leaders without titles, we are going to have organizations with people at the helm putting forth their best.

Knowing policy does help make the gossip more understandable.

At this point, American workers are pretty respectful of the bosses they loathe.

There are many similarities between government and business, but they are not the same.

Different units of our bureaucracy have different cultures and each thinks that his is the best.

Some people go to their job. That's the job they have; they have to do it. They hate their boss and their coworkers, this and that. It's hard to get along.

I am happy at Inter and feel like part of the group.

In large companies, the CEO is very distant from operations.

I don't like to be involved in front-office stuff.

The job at Everton was so good. I worked for a great chairman, great people at the club.

Whatever film it is, the geography has to be right. If I cannot establish it, I'll get lost. I wouldn't even understand it in the first place! I hence visit a place and decide what can be conveyed from where; how that can be incorporated in the story.

I had, at a point in time, decided not to write on the corporate world. But if people expect me to set stories in a work environment, then why go away from it?

Part of me isn't that interested as a person and a viewer in people's personal lives. I'm much more interested in what people do in the workplace and what goals they set themselves. I guess that's why I write a lot of precinct drama.

If you see your company culture as a family, you don't want to fire someone just because their short-term performance is not good. If you do, even the people on your team who are excellent performers will look at what's going on and say, 'Someday you might fire me too.' You'll lose everyone's trust.

There is almost nothing more painful for a leader than seeing good people leave a growing organization, whether it's a priest watching a Sunday school teacher walk out the door or a CEO saying goodbye to a co-founder.

I am somewhat surprised to have employees.

Everybody has a corporate structure.