Overhead will eat you alive if not constantly viewed as a parasite to be exterminated. Never mind the bleating of those you employ. Hold out until mutiny is imminent before employing even a single additional member of staff. More startups are wrecked by overstaffing than by any other cause, bar failure to monitor cash flow.
Public hangings are teaching moments. Every company has to do it. A teaching moment is worth a thousand CEO speeches. CEOs can talk and blab each day about culture, but the employees all know who the jerks are. They could name the jerks for you. It's just cultural. People just don't want to do it.
I don't think value to the customer is achieved at the expense of employees' welfare.
No small misery is caused by overworked and unhappy people, in the dark views which they necessarily take up themselves, and force upon others, of work itself.
You've got to understand, people are motivated by fun. And they should be.
If people think the boss is manipulating them to get them to work harder, it backfires.
Managers are never appreciated when they're in the job.
I think, in any workplace environment, the atmosphere trickles down from the top.
Employers who recognize the importance of investing in their workforce have a more productive workforce, a more efficient workforce, a more loyal workforce, less turnover, and, in the private sector, more profitable.
If the head man in a company is not working 12 hours a day, doing things, taking risks, but also standing with his people in the trenches at the most difficult of times, then the company loses something.
I'm told by our internal surveys that we take of customers - by customers themselves directly and by a very large group of our employees - that there's a new spirit at United.
All managers are losers, they are the most expendable pieces of furniture on the face of the Earth.
I expect that our associates will walk with a little more bounce in their step and understand that this company is behind them and has respect for them.
They fire coaches before players.
I do not work for the shareholder, to be honest. I work for the customer.
When I see something that needs to be corrected, I may talk to a store manager. I don't want to demoralize people when it's beyond their control.
I think Amazon is a place where people don't want to work.
Always let your employees come to work with a smile.
The worst mistake a boss can make is not to say 'well done'.
When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance.
A team will take on its manager's personality. If it's a laid back manager, you'll have a laid back personality. The players will see that if it's OK for the Manager to be laid back, then you'll have a laid back team.
The minute you do any layoffs, you might as well lay off the whole joint because everybody forgets about the customer and worries about their job security.
When the reviews are bad I tell my staff that they can join me as I cry all the way to the bank.
At this point, American workers are pretty respectful of the bosses they loathe.
I don't have an office. I sit in a cubicle with everybody else. That's partly so no one can ask for an office, which in a fast-growing company isn't practical. But it's also so I can keep my finger on the pulse of how people are feeling.
