N. R. Narayana Murthy Quotes

The biggest part of my job now is to quickly develop successors, and around the world I am working to develop new business leaders in the company.

Strong succession planning is a critical element of all the Johnson enterprises.

Unlike people, companies outlive their founders and their leaders.

All companies of any size have to continue to push to make sure you get the right leaders, the right team, the right people to be fast acting, and fast moving in the marketplace. We've got great leaders, and we continue to attract and promote great new leaders.

The lesson is that, No. 1, this management has to be at the highest class possible. No. 2, they have to have a succession plan.

There would not be enough talent that's educated, developed and ready to take on the next leadership challenge, and it would cap our growth. Now we've put programs in place not to have that happen, but that could be a weakness.

At IBM, if we kept our same leadership for 36 years, we'd be bankrupt.

Why do I need succession planning? I'm very alert, I'm very vibrant. I have no intention to retire.

Go for a business that any idiot can run - because sooner or later, any idiot probably is going to run it.

Change in leadership does not only come in a pin stripe suit with a bald spot on its head.

I think we're ready for succession. We just must try to do it right.

I think a CEO lives or dies in whether he's been able to hold on to elements of culture that are needed in the company.

I mean, some people say, 'Oh, God, if [Jobs] got run over by a bus, Apple would be in trouble.' And, you know, I think it wouldn't be a party, but there are really capable people at Apple. My job is to make the whole executive team good enough to be successors, so that's what I try to do.

If I can impact an executive and his or her team, I can help to change the culture of an organization.

What we learned several years ago was that one of our weaknesses would be if we didn't develop enough people with the know-how to run our company, it would come to the point where we would just stop.

I'm trying to construct a world that maximises the probability that SpaceX continues its mission without me.

Quite often, people who build big businesses don't believe anyone else can run them, and you end up with an old rascal in their 70s and no one to take them on. I could name several - and I won't - who put themselves in that invidious position.

I do not want to be a long-term CEO.

We started Kotter International to improve leaders' ability to deal with big, important transformations in organizations - and in their lives.

Fidelity does have a succession plan in place to ensure a smooth transition.

The question was, in a sense, at Princeton Review, how much value was I adding as a public company CEO. I was adding less than other people might've... I think you want to move on when you've given your best work and then feel that you're not going to add as much value moving forward.

It's a very difficult business, and I'm very interested in the future of it after I'm gone, and I thought that if I can't produce a strong management team here myself, and I can find better management elsewhere, then I should sell it.

The development of our human resources is an area in which we need to do well as it is decisive in determining the success of our diversification programme.

No company should depend on one person no matter how that person is smart or genius, whether it's Apple or News Corp, or Citibank or any other company in the world.

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.