Management Priorities Quotes

Management cares about only one thing. Paperwork. They will forgive almost anything else - cost overruns, gross incompetence, criminal indictments - as long as the paperwork's filled out properly. And in on time.

An executive cannot gradually dismiss details. Business is made up of details and I notice that the chief executive who dismisses them is quite likely to dismiss his business. Success is the sum of detail. It might perhaps be pleasing to imagine oneself beyond detail and engaged only in great things, but as I have often observed, if one attends only to great things and lets the little things pass the great things become little; that is, the business shrinks.

Productivity is most important by engineering management rules, but enjoyment is most important for engineers. One stems from the other.

I work with CEOs and their executive teams... and very few of these people are really indifferent about their employees or their customers.

Amenities are not of great concern to management in Japan.

In the long run managements stressing accounting appearance over economic substance usually achieve little of either.

Most chief executives rise to that position by being good operating managers. Few have extensive experience or training with capital allocation. What CEO wants to return excess cash to shareholders when it could be used to expand his or her empire?

I'm a technical manager, but I don't have to take care of people. I only have to worry about technology itself.