1. Very often it’s hard to distinguish between working and socializing because the whole industry is built around the social occasion.
Andrew Allan (b.1964) British e-commerce executive. Referring to the beverage industry. Marketing (September 2000)
2. Some firms hardly dare change the wallpaper without consulting a guru.
Anonymous. Quoted in Corporate Man to Corporate Skunk (Stuart Crainer; 1997)
3. If you change the way you work, you will change the way you think.
Anonymous. Statement by the London-based St. Lukes Advertising Agency. Management Today (April 1999)
4. The combined board creates a strong signal of unity inside and outside the company. It is an important symbolic and practical change.
Percy Barnevik (b.1941) Swedish former C.E.O. of ABB. Referring to the reorganization of a multinational company. Quoted in In Search of European Excellence (Robert Heller; 1997)
5. Organisational psychology.
Christopher Bartlett (b.1945) Australian business writer. The term created by the authors to describe the collection of corporate values and beliefs that can be managed. Managing Across Borders (co-written with Sumantra Ghoshal; 1989)
6. Constructive confrontation.
Christopher Bartlett (b.1945) Australian business writer. The Individualised Corporation (co-written with Sumantra Ghoshal; 1997)
7. The oppressive atmosphere in most companies resembles downtown Calcutta in summer.
Christopher Bartlett (b.1945) Australian business writer. The Individualised Corporation (co-written with Sumantra Ghoshal; 1997)
8. I believe in provocative disruption.
Charlotte Beers (b.1935) U.S. advertising executive and former under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs in the U.S. government. Fortune (August 1996)
9. One square foot less and it would be adulterous.
Robert Benchley (1889-1945) U.S. humorist. Referring to the size of a shared office. Quoted in New Yorker (January 1946)
10. Trust is essential to all organizations.
Warren Bennis (b.1925) U.S. educator and writer. Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge (1985)
11. The single most important determinant of corporate culture is the behavior of the chief executive officer. He or she is the one clearly responsible for shaping the beliefs, motives, commitments, and predispositions of all.
Warren Bennis (b.1925) U.S. educator and writer. “Leaders and Visions: Orchestrating the Corporate Culture,” The Conference Board Challenge to Business: Industry Leaders Speak Their Minds (Peter Krass and Richard E. Cavanagh, eds.; 2000)
12. There’s No Business Like Show Business.
Irving Berlin (1888-1989) U.S. composer and songwriter. Song title. “There’s No Business Like Show Business” (1946)
13. A corporation does seem like a family. Not necessarily that one big happy family they like to boast about…but just like every family, a hotbed of passion, rivalry, and dreams that build or destroy careers.
Paula Bernstein (b.1933) U.S. writer. Family Ties, Corporate Bonds (1985)
14. We’re not a company that seeks out controversy, but we sure do find it.
Jeff Bezos (b.1964) U.S. founder and C.E.O. of Amazon.com. Sunday Telegraph (London) (July 2000)
15. Indians in general have tended to under-market themselves. That comes because it’s part of our culture…you don’t go and say I have created the world’s greatest software.
Subeer Bhatia (b.1967) Indian IT entrepreneur and founder of Hotmail. Business Week (September 2000)
16. When you are siting under the stern gaze of Lord Reith, you wouldn’t dare say things you might in other circumstances.
Christopher Bland (b.1938) British media executive and chairman of British Telecom. Referring to his own outspoken comments earlier in his career. Management Today (July 1999)
17. The big danger in mega-mergers is that they are seen as a mating of dinosaurs.
Peter Bonfield (b.1944) British former C.E.O. of British Telecom. Sunday Times (London) (July 2000)
18. In all successful professional groups, regard for the individual is based not on title, but on competence, stature, and leadership.
Marvin Bower (1903-2003) U.S. C.E.O. of McKinsey & Company. The Will to Manage (1966)
19. The way to rebuild our corporate world is a blend of both male and female energy.
Terri Bowersock (b.1956) U.S. furniture company entrepreneur. “She Could Have Gone To Jail, But Ended Up a Millionaire Instead,” Entrepreneur Illustrated (1999)
20. Boxing is just show business with blood.
Frank Bruno (b.1961) British boxer. Guardian (London) (November 1991)
21. In the insurance business, there is no statute of limitation on stupidity.
Warren Buffett (b.1930) U.S. entrepreneur and financier. Annual report (1991)
22. Lethargy bordering on sloth remains the cornerstone of our investment style.
Warren Buffett (b.1930) U.S. entrepreneur and financier. Newsweek (May 1991)
23. IBM is like the Stepford Wives. It takes the best people from the best universities and colleges and then snips out some part of the brain so that they become mindless clones.
Bill Campbell (b.1940) U.S. C.E.O. of Intuit Corporation. Quoted in Giant Killers (Geoffrey James; 1996)
24. Of course when you shut the door, other people look across and say, “ooh, what’s going on.”
Barbara Cassani (b.1960) U.S. former C.E.O. of Go. Management Today (August 1999)
25 Indian management has to purpose processes which conform to the underlying grain of the Indian temper.
- K. Chakraborty (b.1957) Indian academic. Management by Values: Towards Cultural Congruence (1991)
26. Creative swiping provides energy to an organization.
Chuck Chambers, U.S. C.E.O. of SLD. Quoted in Liberation Management (Tom Peters; 1992)
27. A for-profit think tank.
Jim Clifton (b.1951) U.S. C.E.O. of Gallup. Referring to Gallup. Financial Times (London) (October 2000)
28. Nobody here cares which washroom you use.
Debi Coleman (b.1953) U.S. business executive and chief financial officer of Apple Computers. U.S. News & World Report (September 1987)
29. Perfect freedom is reserved for the man who lives by his own work and, in that work, does what he wants to do.
- G. Collingwood (1889-1943) British philosopher, Speculum Mentis (1924)
30. NCOs had evaluated themselves by the thickness of their carpets.
Bill Creech (b.1958) U.S. commanding general of U.S. Air Force Tactical Air Command. Quoted in A Passion for Excellence (Tom Peters and Nancy Austin; 1985)
31. They tried to Wal-Martise me and it worked.
Carlos Criado-Perez (b.1952) Argentinian business executive. Sunday Times (London) (July 2000)
32. The key to effective leadership in corporations is reading and responding to cultural clues.
Terrence Deal, U.S. author. The New Corporate Cultures (co-written with Allan Kennedy; 1999)
33. It’s a vibrant special place, it really is like being in Italy during the Renaissance.
Donna Dubinsky (b.1955) U.S. IT executive. Referring to Silicon Valley. Sunday Telegraph (London) (August 2000)
34. When I first started on Wall Street there was a lot of drinking…you would meet..people after work and have drinks, drinks. But that’s all changed. It’s mineral water now.
Gail Dudack (b.1948) U.S. managing director and chief investment strategist of UBS Securities Ltd. Quoted in Women of the Street (Sue Herera; 1997)
35. I could buy companies, tart up their products and put my name on them, but I don’t want to do that. That’s what our competitors do.
James Dyson (B.1947) British entrepreneur. Management Today (July 1999)
36. My interest is in the practice of making and engineering things and doing it with a complete lack of marketing hype.
James Dyson (B.1947) British entrepreneur. Management Today (July 1999)
37. The term synergy may be the object of ridicule throughout the world, but not here in Burbank, California.
Michael Eisner (b.1942) U.S. chairman and C.E.O. of the Disney Corporation. Speech (April 1996)
38. I’m a child of the corporate struggle.
Michael Eisner (b.1942) U.S. chairman and C.E.O. of the Disney Corporation. Time (April 1988)
39. A happy atmosphere is something that customers pick up on.
Tom Farmer (b.1940) British chairman and C.E.O. of Kwik-Fit. Digital Britain (January 2000)
40. Intense decentralization that given managers the freedom usually reserved for entrepreneurs.
James W. Farnell, U.S. C.E.O. of Illinois Tool Works, Inc. Business Week (1995)
41. Too many people are on boards because they want to have nice-looking visiting cards.
Utz Felcht (b.1947) German chairman of Degussa. Sunday Times (London) (October 2000)
42. Anytime you have a fiercely-competitive, change-oriented growth business where results count and merit matters, women will rise to the top.
Carly Fiorina (b.1954) U.S. president and C.E.O. of Hewlett-Packard. “The 50 Most Powerful Women in American Business,” Fortune (Patricia Sellers and Cora Daniels; October 1999)
43. A company needs smart young men with the imagination and the guts to turn everything upside down if they can. It also needs old figures to keep them from turning upside down those things that ought to be rightside up.
Henry Ford (1919-87) U.S. automobile manufacturer and C.E.O. of Ford Motor Company. Speech (1966)
44. I really enjoyed going into the office…it was a party every day. I would be right in the middle of an econometric model and someone would pull a champagne cork because it was a birthday, or someone had adopted a baby.
Elaine Garzarelli (b.1951) U.S. C.E.O. and president of Garzarelli Investment Management. Referring to working in Wall Street. Quoted in Women of the Street (Sue Herera; 1997)
45. Synergy, the most screwball buzzword of the past decade.
Harold S. Geneen (1910-97) U.S. telecommunications entrepreneur and C.E.O. of ITT. The Synergy Myth (co-written with Brent Bowers; 1997)
46. I’m almost not trying to understand IBM’s culture.
Lou Gerstner (b.1942) U.S. chairman and C.E.O. of IBM. Fortune (1993)
47. There is a misconception that small is always more beautiful than big.
Lou Gerstner (b.1942) U.S. chairman and C.E.O. of IBM. Fortune (May 1993)
48. That state is a state of slavery in which a man does what he likes to do in his spare time and, in his working time, that which is required of him.
Eric Gill (1882-1940) British sculptor and engraver. Art-Nonsense and Other Essays (1929)
49. A company’s culture is often buried so deeply inside rituals, assumptions, attitudes, and values that it becomes transparent to an organization’s members only when, for some reason, it changes.
Rob Goffee (b.1952) U.S. writer, consultant, and professor at London Business School. The Character of a Corporation (co-written with Gareth Jones; 1998)
50. The character of a corporation can be illuminated by identifying its sociability and solidarity.
Rob Goffee (b.1952) U.S. writer, consultant, and professor at London Business School. The Character of a Corporation (co-written with Gareth Jones; 1998)
51. We don’t manage people here. People manage themselves.
Wilbert Lee Gore (d.1986) U.S. founder of Goretex. Quoted in A Passion for Excellence (Tom Peters and Nancy Austin; 1985)
52. Discrimination is against the interests of business-yet business people too often practice it…they erect barriers to the free flow of capital and labor to their most profitable employment, and the distribution of output is distorted. In the end, costs are higher, less real output is produced, and national wealth accumulation is slowed.
Alan Greenspan (b.1926) U.S. economist and chairman of U.S. Federal Reserve Board. Speech to the National Association of Urban Bankers, Urban Financial Services Coalition, San Francisco, California. “Evolving Challenges for Bankers and Supervisors” (May 25, 2000)
53. There is nothing more short term than a 60-year-old CEO holding a fistful of share options.
Gary Hamel (b.1954) U.S. academic, business writer, and consultant. Competing for the Future (co-written with C. K. Prahalad; 1994)
54. You might merge with another organization, but two drunks don’t make a sensible person.
Gary Hamel (b.1954) U.S. academic, business writer, and consultant. Competing for the Future (co-written with C. K. Prahalad; 1994)
55. Every company has its own language, its own version of its own history (its myths), and its own heroes and villians (its legends), both historical and contemporary.
Michael Hammer (b.1948) U.S. author and academic. Beyond Re-engineering (1996)
56. The people are not bad, but they have stopped questioning themselves.
Guy Hands (b.1959) Zimbabwe an C.E.O. of Terra Firma Capital Partners. Referring to complacency of established companies. Management Today (October 1999)
57. People weren’t allowed to put the whole puzzle together. Instead, they were given small parts because they feared what people would do if they knew and saw the whole puzzle.
Charles Handy (b.1932) British business executive and author. Interview (February 1994)
58. The microdivision of labour has fostered a basic distrust of human beings.
Charles Handy (b.1932) British business executive and author. Interview (February 1994)
59. To hold people to the corporation, there has to be some kind of continuity and some sense of belonging…With the way corporations are evolving…unless we develop a more sophisticated model of the organization, the corporation will become just a box of contracts with no commitment on anyone’s part.
Charles Handy (b.1932) British business executive and author. Interview, Strategy + Business (October-December 1995)
60. He draws the bonds of his new engagements closer and tighter about him. He loses sight, by degrees, of all common sense…in the petty squabbles, intrigues, feuds, and airs of affected importance to which he has made himself accessory.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830) British essayist and journalist. Describing the corporate employee. “On Corporate Bodies,” Table Talk (1821-22), Essay 27
61. Even though the leviathans have remained rich and powerful, mass has slowed them down and given openings to the new and nimble.
Robert Heller (b.1932) British management writer. In Search of European Excellence (1997)
62. We know assistive technology…is making it easier for people with disabilities to join the labor force. But we also know that…about three out of four people with disabilities who want to work are not working.
Alexis M. Herman (b.1947) U.S. politician. Labor Day address, New York (September 3, 1999)
63. In some of these family-owned companies, you can’t tell the father to fire the son. We feel we need more control.
Ta-Lin Hsu (b.1943) Chinese investor. Forbes (December 1998)
64. We are trying to apply Silicon Valley techniques to some of our Asian investments.
Ta-Lin Hsu (b.1943) Chinese investor. Forbes (December 1998)
65. We were forced to become a fix-it company because we don’t have money to buy $50 million stations.
Cathy Hughes (b.1947?) U.S. broadcasting executive. Forbes (September 1999)
66. If you’re not scared, you’re too stupid to work here.
Lee Iacocca (b.1924) U.S. president of Ford Motor Company, chairman and C.E.O. of Chrysler Corporation. Speech (1990)
67 .Corporations have been pre-occupied with the qualifications experience and achievements of individuals.
Anthony Jay (b.1930) British author and business consultant. Quoted in Management Teams-Why They Succeed (R. Meredith Belbin; 1984)
68. If you’re not happy with yourself, how can you make the customer happy?
Liisa Joronen (b.1944) Finnish C.E.O. of SOL (formerly Lindstrom. Fast Company (1997)
69. It’s just a very difficult way of thinking. My workers don’t look at me as a boss, but as a friend, someone they can deal with in confidence.
Alberto Juantorena (b.1950) Cuban athlete and businessman. Quoted in Running with the legends (Michael Sandrock; 1996)
70. How the hell can I ask people who work for me to travel cheaply if I am travelling in luxury.
Ingvar Kamprad (b.1926) Swedish business executive and founder of IKEA. Forbes (August 2000)
71. I don’t want to feel responsible to outsiders with financial concerns that may differ from those of the welfare of IKEA.
Ingvar Kamprad (b.1926) Swedish business executive and founder of IKEA. Forbes (August 2000)
72. My answer is to stay close to ordinary people because at heart I am one.
Ingvar Kamprad (b.1926) Swedish business executive and founder of IKEA. Forbes (August 2000)
73. For us to get out of a business would involve firing people and that cannot be done easily in Japan.
Tsutomu Kanai (b.1929) Japanese chairman of Hitachi. Fortune (May 1996)
74. When I work in this place, it’s my rest.
Mehmet Kanbur (b.1948) Turkish entrepreneur. Forbes (October 1999)
75. Corporate values are a genuine competitive advantage…an eduring factor amid so many changes in products and services.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter (b.1943) U.S. management theorist, academic, and writer. Speech (1991)
76. Unlike a more communal environment…those who run the bureaucratic corporation often rely on outward manifestation to determine “the right sort of person.”
Rosabeth Moss Kanter (b.1943) U.S. management theorist, academic, and writer. Economist (March 1992)
77. Ambivalence about family responsibilities has a long history in the corporate world.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter (b.1943) U.S. management theorist, academic, and writer. When Giants Learn to Dance: Mastering the Challenges of Strategy, Management and Careers in the 1990s (1992), ch. 10
78. The corporation’s edict to its members could be phrased as: “While you are here, you will act as though you have no other responsibilities, no other life.”
Rosabeth Moss Kanter (b.1943) U.S. management theorist, academic, and writer. When Giants Learn to Dance: Mastering the Challenges of Strategy, Management and Careers in the 1990s (1992), ch. 2
79. Companies…are likely to find hierarchies turned upside down. Junior teach seniors, subordinates lead teams with their bosses on them…A decision-making hierarchy is replaced by an internal marketplace of ideas.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter (b.1943) U.S. management theorist, academic, and writer. “How E-Smart Are You?,” World Link (January-February 2000)
80. It’s excitement, animation, a show. You’re in show business 365 days a year.
Donna Karan (b.1948) U.S. fashion designer. Referring to fashion business. Style (August 2000)
81. The new economy favors intangible things- ideas, information, and relationships.
Kevin Kelly (b.1958) U.S. executive editor of Wired magazine. New Rules for the New Economy: 10 Radical Strategies for a Connected World (1998)
82. In an age of incessant searching for a grail of business and personal success that recedes as surely as Gatsby’s green light into the distance, of the making of management gurus there is no foreseeable end.
Carol Kennedy (b.1952) British business executive, editor, and author. Guide to the Management Gurus (1991)
83. Diversity raises the intelligence of groups.
Nancy Kline (b.1946) U.S. author, educator, and consultant. Time to think (1999)
84. More and more CEOs have become conscious that they are the CEO of marketing. You’re selling trust.
Philip Kotler (b.1931) U.S. marketing management thinker. Quoted in Business Week (December 9, 1996)
85. Anyone is an environment that is not preparing him or her for a tougher future should move out fast.
John P. Kotter (b.1947) U.S. writer. The New Rules: How to Succeed in Today’s Post-Corporate World (1995)
86. I believe in God, family, and McDonald’s and, in the office, that order is reversed.
Ray Kroc (1902-84) U.S. founder of McDonald’s. Quoted in McDonald’s-Behind the Arches (John F. Love; 1986)
87. If I had a brick for every time I’ve repeated the phrase “Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value,” I’d probably be able to bridge the Atlantic Ocean with them.
Ray Kroc (1902-84) U.S. founder of McDonald’s. Quoted in McDonald’s. McDonald’s Annual Report (1980)
88. Modelers build intricate decision trees whose pretension to utility is exceeded only by the awe in which high-level managers hold the technocrats who constrain them.
Theodore Levitt (b.1925) U.S. management theorist, writer, and editor. “A Heretical View of Management Science,” Fortune (December 1978)
89. Not as priest or soldier or judge does youth seek honor today, but as a man of offices. The business subaltern, charming and gallant as the jungle-gallopers of Kipling, drills files, not of troops, but of correspondence.
Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) U.S. writer and social critic. The Job (1916)
90. Men are quite humorless about their own businesses.
Betty MacDonald (1908-58) U.S. writer. The Egg and I (1945)
91. It’s a dream of mine to make the Japanese market more democratic.
Oki Matsumoto (b.1964) Japanese IT executive, Business Week (September 2000)
92. We’ve got to change the way companies go public, or we’ll never see Japanese capital markets develop.
Oki Matsumoto (b.1964) Japanese IT executive, Business Week (September 2000)
93. In a company of 2500 people, there are 2500 egos running around, each with his or her own view of reality.
Mark McCormack (1930-2003) U.S. entrepreneur, founder and C.E.O. of the International Management Group. What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School (1984)
94. Never pick up someone else’s ringing phone. Mark McCormack (1930-2003) U.S. entrepreneur, founder and C.E.O. of the International Management Group. What You’ll Never Learn on the Internet (2000)
95. I need to be part of something that is constantly evolving, that’s not established.
Judy McGrath (b.1952) U.S. president of MTV. “The 50 Most Powerful Women in American Businessman,” Fortune (Patricia Sellers and Cora Daniels; October 1999)
96. A corporate Woodstock.
Regis McKenna (b.1939) U.S. marketing entrepreneur and chairman of the McKenna Group. Referring to Apple Computers. Quoted in Infinite Loop (Michael S. Malone; 1999)
97. Tolerance is not acceptance, and indifference is not assimilation.
Carey McWilliams (1905-80) U.S. lawyer, journalist, and writer. Brothers under the Skin (1945)
98. The missionary configuration would have its own prime co-ordinating mechanism-socialization, or, if you like, the standardization of norms-and a corresponding main design parameter-indoctrination.
Henry Mintzberg (b.1939) Canadian academic and management theorist. The Structuring of Organizations (1979)
99. The organization would have…an ideology. The perceptive reader visitor would sense it immediately.
Henry Mintzberg (b.1939) Canadian academic and management theorist. The Structuring of Organizations (1979)
100. Clearly, there will be a first among equals, but my brothers and I really are joined at the hip. That may actually make it easier for us to do what our dad did.
Elisabeth Murdoch (b.1968) Australian movie and television executive. Referring to Rupert Murdoch’s family. Forbes (July 1998)
101. I don’t get involved in the details. I do get involved in the choice of editors.
Elisabeth Murdoch (b.1968) Australian movie and television executive. Referring to Rupert Murdoch’s family. Forbes (July 1998)
102. John D. Rockefeller wanted to dominate oil, but Microsoft wants it all, you name it: cable, media, banking, car dealerships.
Ralph Nader (b.1934) U.S. lawyer and consumer-rights campaigner. Newsweek (October 1997)
103. I want all our people to believe they are working for the best agenc in the world. A sense of pride works wonders.
David Ogilvy (1911-99) British advertising executive, founder and chairman of Ogilvy & Mather. Principles Management (1968)
104. It is more of an entrepreneurial approach where the people close to the market and product create the business.
Kenichi Ohmae (b.1943) Japanese management consultant and theorist. Quoted in Thriving on Chaos (Tom Peters; 1987)
105. Success goes to those with a corporate culture that assures the ability to anticipate and meet customer demand.
Tadashi Okamura (b.1938) Japanese president and C.E.O. of Toshiba Group. Message, www.toshiba.com (1999)
106. It’s good business for our people to have confidence that we will not lay them off just to help our profit short-term.
Ken Olsen (b.1926) U.S. computer designer and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation. Speech (1982)
107. One company, one strategy, one message.
Ken Olsen (b.1926) U.S. computer designer and founder of Digital Equipment Corporation. Quoted in The Ultimate Entrepreneur (Glenn Rifkin and George Harrar; 1988)
108. The open bins and store rooms were symbols of trust, a trust that is central to the way HP does business.
David Packard (1912-96) U.S. entrepreneur and cofounder of Hewlett-Packard. The HP Way (1995)
109. I’ve often thought that after you get organized, you ought to throw away the organization chart.
David Packard (1912-96) U.S. entrepreneur and cofounder of Hewlett-Packard. “Lessons of Leadership,” The Nation’s Business (January 1974)
110. I come from an environment where, if you see a snake, you kill it. At General Motors, if you see a snake, the first thing you do is hire a consultant on snakes.
- Ross Perot (b.1930) U.S. entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and politician. Speech (December 1991)
111. You need to have what could be called seduction skills- this not a world of command and control.
Raoul Pinnell (b.1951) British branding and marketing communications director of Shell International Petroleum. Marketing (June 2000)
112. The clichés of a culture sometimes tell the deepest truths.
Faith Popcorn (b.1947) U.S. trend expert and founder of BrainReserve. The Popcorn Report (1991)
113. We will be creating two swans out of ugly ducklings.
Peter Ratcliffe (b.1948) British C.E.O. of P&O leisure division. Sunday Times (London) (October 2000)
114. When people look at you as an independent company, they are in a position to judge you and understand you better and they give you the value that you believe is there.
Peter Ratcliffe (b.1948) British C.E.O. of P&O leisure division. Sunday Times (London) (October 2000)
115. The kind of brain-dead, gum chewing assistant you find in so many shops drives wild. I want everyone who works for me to feel the same excitement that I feel.
Anita Roddick (b.1942) British entrepreneur and founder of the Body Shop. Body and Soul (co-written with Russell Miller; 1991)
116. I’m forcing more men into my company to get more sexual tension into the business…I love the buzz and…sexuality of verbal foreplay.
Anita Roddick (b.1942) British entrepreneur and founder of the Body Shop. Marketing (August 3, 1989)
117. We have our values from the Church, the temple, the mosque. Do not rob, do not murder. But our behavior changes the minute we go into the corporate place. Suddenly all of this is irrelevant.
Anita Roddick (b.1942) British entrepreneur and founder of the Body Shop. Interview, Marketing Week (February 24, 2000)
118. They trawl me out when the city comes down to see us, just to give them shock therapy.
Anita Roddick (b.1942) British entrepreneur and founder of the Body Shop. Quoted in The Adventure Capitalists (Jeff Grout and Lynne Curry; 1998)
119. We don’t so much have a marketing department, as an anthropologists working for us.
Anita Roddick (b.1942) British entrepreneur and founder of the Body Shop. Referring to the ethical attitudes of the Body Shop. Quoted in The Adventure Capitalists (Jeff Grout and Lynne Curry; 1998)
120. Green was the colour which is so strongly seen as the environmental colour. It was also the only colour which covered the damp patches.
Anita Roddick (b.1942) British entrepreneur and founder of the Body Shop. Referring to the ethical attitudes of the Body Shop. Quoted in The Adventure Capitalists (Jeff Grout and Lynne Curry; 1998)
121. The origin of corporatism in the second half of the nineteenth century lay in two things-the rejection of citizen-based democracy and the desire to react in a stable way to the Industrial Revolution.
John Ralston Saul (b.1947) Canadian writer. The Unconscious Civilization (1995)
122. Apple has to be more pragmatic and less religious. And the only one who can really do that is the person who created the religion in the first place.
John Sculley (b.1939) U.S. partner of Sculley Brothers, former president of Pepsi, and C.E.O. of Apple Computers. Newsweek (1996)
123. A true democracy, a place run on trust and freedom, not fear.
Ricardo Semler (b.1959) Brazilian business executive and president of Semco. “The Mavericks,” Fortune (June 1995)
124. This system sounds chaotic, can be frustrating and is, in some ways, uncontrollable. It has destroyed and semblance of corporate security. And…it has worked very well.
Ricardo Semler (b.1959) Brazilian business executive and president of Semco. “The Mavericks,” Fortune (June 1995)
125. We use minimal hierarchies, ad hoc structures, self-control, and the discipline of our own community marketplace of jobs and responsibilities to achieve high quality, on-time performance.
Ricardo Semler (b.1959) Brazilian business executive and president of Semco. Referring to the revolutionary business structure he introduced at Semco. “Why My Former Employees Still Work For Me,” Harvard Business Review (January/February 1994)
126. Inertia of deeply-entrenched mental models.
Peter Senge (b.1947) U.S. academic and author. Quoted in In Search of European Excellence (Robert Heller; 1992)
127. Dividing an elephant in half does not produce two elephants.
Peter Senge (b.1947) U.S. academic and author. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990)
128. Real commitment is rare in today’s organization…90 percent of the time what passes for commitment is compliance.
Peter Senge (b.1947) U.S. academic and author. The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (1990)
129. Corporate totalitarianism…rules through dispensability rather than exploitation. It treats communities, people, countries, ecosystems, species as disposable and dispensable.
Vandana Shiva (b.1944) Indian academic. Globalisation: Gandhi and Swadeshi (2000)
130. If the washroom isn’t good enough for the people in charge, then it’s not good enough for the people in the store.
Marcus Sieff (1913-2001) British president of Mark’s & Spencer. Quoted in A Passion for Excellence (Tom Peters and Mary Austin; 1985)
131. Sometimes I am forced to the conclusion that GM is so large and its inertia so great that it is impossible for us to be leaders.
Alfred P. Sloan (1875-1966) U.S. president of General Motors. Quoted in The Bigness Complex (Walter Adams and James Brock; 1986)
132. Orange was never just another mobile phone company. It was a promise deliverer.
Hans Snook (b.1948) German chairman of Carphone Warhouse and former C.E.O. of Orange. Sunday Times (London) (June 2000)
133. You know the saying, “a horse always knows when the rider is afraid?” That is true for business as well.
Dennis Stevenson (b.1946) British company director. Management Today (April 1999)
134. Any engineer that doesn’t need to wash his hands at least three times a day is a failure.
Shoichiro Toyoda (b.1925) Japanese chairman of Toyota Motor Corporation. Referring to the importance of manufacturing in Japanese industry. Quoted in How to Manage (Ray Wild; 1995)
135. We need to develop more black management throughout the group, particularly in South Africa. Equally you have to be careful not to disillusion the existing management. It’s a difficult balancing act.
Tony Trahar (b.1950) South African C.E.O. of Anglo American. Sunday Times (London) (May 2000)
136. So far I like it fine. Most entrepreneurs don’t last very long in big companies. But I’m not normal.
Ted Turner (b.1938) U.S. founder of Turner Broadcasting Systems. New York Times (November 1996)
137. We need a can-do, vibrant, innovation-driven culture. Not wearing a tie is just a snippet of that.
Paul Walsh (b.1955) British C.E.O. of Diageo. Sunday Times (London) (September 2000)
138. It certainly helped me with the socialization aspect of business.
Paul Walsh (b.1955) British C.E.O. of Diageo. Referring to working in the United States. Sunday Times (London) (September 2000)
139. If the associates treat the customers well, the customers will return again and again, and that’s where the real profit in the retail business lies.
Sam M. Walton (1918-92) U.S. entrepreneur and founder of Wal-Mart, Inc. Made in America (co-written with John Huey; 1992)
140. The way management treats their associates is exactly how the associates will then treat the customers.
Sam M. Walton (1918-92) U.S. entrepreneur and founder of Wal-Mart, Inc. “The Hot Ticket in Retailing,” New York Times (Isadore Barmash; July 1984)
141. We believe that an organization should pursue all tasks with the idea that they can be accomplished in superior fashion.
Thomas J. Watson, JR. (1914-93) U.S. C.E.O. of IBM. A Business and its Beliefs (1963)
142. I looked for those sharp, scratchy, harsh, almost unpleasant guys who see and tell you about things as they really are.
Thomas J. Watson, JR. (1914-93) U.S. C.E.O. of IBM. Fortune (August 1987)
143. Business is a game, the greatest game in the world if you know how to play it.
Thomas J. Watson, SR. (1874-1956) U.S. founder and president of IBM. Quoted in Father, Son & Co.: My Life at IBM and Beyond (Thomas J. Watson, JR. and Peter Petre; 1990)
144. Clothes don’t make the man-but they go a long way towards making a businessman.
Thomas J. Watson, SR. (1874-1956) U.S. founder and president of IBM. Quoted in IBM: Colossus in Transition (Robert Sobel; 1981)
145. You cannot be a success in any business without believing that it is the greatest business in the world.
Thomas J. Watson, SR. (1874-1956) U.S. founder and president of IBM. Quoted in IBM: Colossus in Transition (Robert Sobel; 1981)
146. You have to put your heart in the business and the business in your heart.
Thomas J. Watson, SR. (1874-1956) U.S. founder and president of IBM. Quoted in IBM: Colossus in Transition (Robert Sobel; 1981)
147. Wild ducks.
Thomas J. Watson, SR. (1874-1956) U.S. founder and president of IBM. Referring to a group of IBM Fellows, whose role is to shake up the organization. Quoted in In Search of Excellence(Tom Peters and Robert Waterman; 1982)
148. Our dream for the 1990s is a boundaryless company…where we knock down the walls that separate us from each other on the inside and from our key constituencies on the outside.
Jack Welch (b.1935) U.S. former chairman and C.E.O. of General Electric. General Electric annual report (1990)
149. Power is a very dangerous word.
Ann Winblad (b.1953) U.S. venture capitalist. “The 50 Most powerful Women in American Business,” Fortune (Patricia Sellers and Cora Daniels; October 1999)
150. The software industry as a whole tends to be slightly managed chaos. It was a giant group grope in the 1970s, when this whole thing started…effectively there are no rules.
Ann Winblad (b.1953) U.S. venture capitalist. Quoted in Giant Killers (Geooffrey James; 1996)
151. If you look at the companies where the CEO stayed on till he’s 80, those are the people who confuse themselves with the company.
Walter Wriston (b.1919) U.S. banker. New York Times (April 1993)
152. We’re not in cultures which support learning; we’re in cultures that give us the message consistently: “Don’t mess up, don’t make mistakes, don’t make the boss look bad, don’t give us any surprises.” So we’re asking for a kind of predictability, control, respect and compliance that has nothing to do with learning.
Walter Wriston (b.1919) U.S. banker. Interview with Scott London, U.S. National Public Radio (November 1996)
