Gene Sperling Quotes

When the finance or marketing people run a company, innovation stops.

Management manages by making decisions and by seeing that those decisions are implemented.

The first myth of management is that it exists. The second myth of management is that success equals skill.

Every employee in a company depends on the C.E.O. to make fast, high-quality decisions.

I was always fascinated by the decision-making process and the managerial process and just business in general.

Most regular, two-year MBA programs provide both experience and the capacity to link together the essential elements of management such as finance, marketing, organizational behavior, and operations.

Twenty-eight years in business and you understand the importance of problem solving and the importance of efficiency, because if you don't become efficient, you don't run a business well, and you are out of business. And I think some of those principles could be applied to leadership in Washington.

I am a very hands-on person, and I like to be involved in driving my business.

Clearly, every company needs a leader. That's an important part of being the CEO of the company.

As a company gets big, the information that informs decision-making gets massive. Depending upon the prism through which you view the business, your perspective will vary. If two people are in charge, this variance will cause conflict and delay.

In every business, in every industry, management does matter.

We tend to think of the mind of an organization residing in the CEO and the organization's top managers, perhaps with the help of outside consultants that they call in. But that is not really how an organization thinks.

Business requires understanding financial matters, but management is different from running the financial aspects of the business - it requires understanding complex systems, how they operate, the nature of organisations, what happens when people interact in groups and how to motivate and guide people.

No business can succeed in any great degree without being properly organized.

We have no strategy. It is the government that sets the strategy. All we can do it try and figure out what the government will do.

Argue as you please, you are nowhere, that grand old man, the Prime Minister, insists on the other thing.

I'm really more of an executive.

I'm surprised sometimes at the responsibilities you have as a director.

As a company grows, things get stuck at the top. It can be a bottleneck.

Decisions are made by people who have time, not people who have talent.

My job is not to make decisions but to set stretch objectives and help our managers work out how to reach them.

We are a very big and vast Government, and naturally, every ministry is becoming bigger and bigger. It becomes, therefore, essential that there should be proper coordination.

People will give you the responsibility, even the authority, to go after the big things, the visionary things, the reaching for incredible opportunities, if they trust that you're running a city well. And if you don't run a city well, conversely, you can't do the big things.

Underlings look up to the boss for behavioral cues, subtle signs, hints and gestures.

For the label to grow, it has to have great executives who understand the culture, understand the mission, and can lead. I don't want to be part of every decision.