Great Throughts Treasury

"Getting there isn't half the fun - it's all the fun."

"[A good leader should] carry water for their people, protect them from distraction, and appeal to the best in every employee. They should be visible to the troops."

"A good leader needs to have a compass in his head and a bar of steel in his heart."

"A good manager doesn't try to eliminate conflict; he tries to keep it from wasting the energies of his people. If you're the boss and your people fight you openly when they think that you are wrong -- that's healthy."

"All decisions need to be made as "low" as possible in the company. The charge of the Light Brigade was ordered by an officer who wasn't there looking at the territory."

"All organizations are at least 50 percent waste -- waste people, waste effort, waste space, and waste time."

"Cars that have been seriously damaged in one state can be wind up in another."

"Don't hire a master to paint you a masterpiece and then assign a roomful of schoolboy artists to look over his shoulder and make suggestions."

"Compromise is usually bad. It should be a last resort. If two departments or divisions have a problem they can?t solve and it comes up to you, listen to both sides and then, unlike Solomon, pick one or the other. This places solid accountability on the winner to make it work. This places solid accountability on the winner to make it work. Condition your people to avoid compromise."

"Excellence and size are fundamentally incompatible."

"Consultants are people who borrow your watch and tell you what time it is, and then walk off with the watch."

"If asked when you can deliver something, ask for time to think. Build in a margin of safety. Name a date. Then deliver it earlier than you promised. You'll be very valuable wherever you are."

"Flooded vehicles are sometimes cleaned up by unscrupulous sellers without disclosure of flood damage. In most states, this is illegal, but unfortunately some vehicles will slip through the system."

"If you have to have a policy manual, publish the Ten Commandments."

"If people are coming to work excited...if they're making mistakes freely and fearlessly...if they're having fun...if they're concentrating on doing things, rather than preparing reports and going to meetings...then somewhere you have a leader."

"Is what I'm doing or about to do getting us closer to our objective?"

"It?s interesting that otherwise competent businessmen, capable of budgeting a complex operation, can't figure out that the cost of maintaining two women is twice the cost of one plus certain fringes. An early symptom of the mistress is a sudden surge of creativity in an executive's expense account. I once had a personnel vice-president who had taken up with one of our executive secretaries. If it had been outside the company I wouldn?t have minded unless it interfered with his work. But a personnel man with his arm around an employee is like a treasurer with his hand in the till? These guys are in the moment, so they can convince even themselves about what they?re saying."

"If you don't do it with excellence, don't do it at all! Because if it's not excellent, it won't be profitable or fun, and if you're not in business for fun or profit, what the hell are you doing there?"

"If you shoot for the stars and hit the moon, it's OK. But you've got to shoot for something. A lot of people don't even shoot."

"In combat, officers eat last. Most people in big companies today are administered, not led. They are treated as personnel, not people."

"If you?re not in business for fun or profit, what the hell are you doing here? [subtitle of UP the Organization]"

"It's a poor bureaucrat who can't stall a good idea until even its sponsor is relieved to see it dead and officially buried"

"Many ideas are good for a limited time -- not forever."

"Managers must have the discipline not to keep pulling up the flowers to see if their roots are healthy."

"Make every decision as if you owned the whole company."

"Most people in big companies are administered, not led. They are treated as personnel, not people."

"Many people give lip service, but few delegate authority in important matters. And that means all they delegate is dog-work. A real leader does as much dog-work for his people as he can: he can do it, or see a way to do without it, ten times as fast. And he delegates as many important matters as he can because that creates a climate in which people grow."

"Rewarding outstanding performance is important. Much more neglected is the equally important need to make sure that the underachievers don?t get rewarded. This is more painful, so it doesn?t get done very often."

"The soul is made for action, and cannot rest till it be employed. Idleness is its rust. Unless it will up and think and taste and see, all is in vain."

"The artist must conceive with warmth yet execute with coolness."

"One of the most important tasks of a manager is to eliminate his people's excuses for failure."

"Top management is supposed to be a tree full of owls...hooting when management heads into the wrong part of the forest. I'm still unpersuaded they even know where the forest is."

"To be satisfying a job should have variety, wholeness, autonomy, and feedback. In other words, no job description."

"These are stretch targets - they are not easy for us."

"They know they're very good issues to be fighting for. They all feel good about it."

"To have a successful organization, you?ll have to give up being an administrator who loves to run others and become a manager who carries water for his people so they can get on with the job."

"True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not the enrichment of the leaders."

"Try calling yourself up to see what indignities you have built into your own defenses."

"Why spend all that money and time on the selection of people when the people you?ve got are breaking down from under-use. Get to know your people. What they do well, what they enjoy doing, what their weaknesses and strengths are, and what they want and need to get from their job. And then try to create an organization around your people, not jam your people into those organization-chart rectangles."

"When you get right down to it, one of the most important tasks of a manager is to eliminate his people's excuses for failure."