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Executives

1. Consultants eventually leave, which makes them excellent scapegoats for major management blunders.

Scott Adams (b.1957) U.S. cartoonist and humorist. The Dilbert Principle (1996)

 

2. Executives can get away with having a clean desk. For the rest of us, it looks like you’re not working hard enough.

Scott Adams (b.1957) U.S. cartoonist and humorist. The Dilbert Principle (1996)

 

3. The biggest change in the workplace of the future will be the widespread realization that having one idiot boss is a much higher risk than having many idiot clients.

Scott Adams (b.1957) U.S. cartoonist and humorist. The Dilbert Principle (1996)

 

4. A molehill man is a pseudo-busy executive who comes to work at 9 a.m. and finds a molehill on his desk. He has until 5 p.m. to make this molehill into a mountain. An accomplished molehill man will often have his mountain finished before lunch.

Fred Allen (1894-1956) U.S. comedian and satirist. Treadmill to Oblivion (1954)

 

5. I admire the capacity of American business executives to continually reinvent what they do; it shows they are never satisfied.

Anonymous. Said by a British member of parliament. Hemispheres (December 1996)

 

6. One lesson a man learns from Harvard Business School is that an executive is only as good as his health.

Jeffrey Archer (b.1940) British novelist and politician. Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (1976)

 

7. When it comes to strategic underpinnings and what is broken and what needs to be fixed, those are the challenges that I love. I love looking for the holes.

Jill Barad (b.1951) U.S. C.E.O. of Mattel. Business Week (1997)

 

8. I don’t play golf. I don’t go to men’s room. I didn’t have the ability to network the way men do. But I made myself visible.

Jill Barad (b.1951) U.S. C.E.O. of Mattel. Wall Street Journal (1997)

 

9. The essential functions of the executive are first to provide the system of communication, second to promote the securing of essential efforts and, third to formulate and define purpose.

Chester Barnard (1886-1961) U.S. business executive and management theorist. The Functions of the Executive (1938)

 

10. In business, today the person at the top is seen as an integral part of the company’s image, which is encouraged by the mass media. Much of my work is communicating internally and externally.

Percy Barnevik (b.1941) Swedish former C.E.O. of Abb. Interview, Company Man: The Rise and Full of Corporate Life (Anthony Sampson; 1995) , ch. 21

 

11. Their problem is that they play a lot of golf, which is right up there with heroin abuse as a killer of our nation’s productivity. The only difference is that golf is more expensive.

Dave Barry (b.1947) U.S. humorist. Referring to executives. Interview, Fortune (July 7, 1997)

 

12. Executives are like joggers. If you stop a jogger, he goes on running on the spot. If you drag an executive away from his business, he goes on running on the spot, pawing the ground, talking business.

Jean Baudrillard (b.1929) French philosopher. Cool Memories (1987)

 

13. Lenin was greatly influenced by the scholarship of Marx, in much the same way as many contemporary business leaders are influenced by the works of leading economists and management scholars.

Warren Bennis (b.1925) U.S. educator and writer. Beyond Leadership: Balancing Economics, Ethics and Ecology (co-written with Jagdish Parikh and Ronnie Lessem; 1994)

 

14. Successful executives are great askers.

Warren Bennis (b.1925) U.S. educator and writer. Beyond Leadership: Balancing Economics, Ethics and Ecology (co-written with Jagdish Parikh and Ronnie Lessem; 1994)

 

15. I am a young executive. No cuffs than mine are cleaner;

I have a Slimline brief-case and I use the firm’s Cortina.

John Betjeman (1906-84) British poet. “The executive,” A Nip in the Air (1974)

 

16. If an executive does not have time for ostentatious spending, his wife or children will do it for him.

Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) Agentinian writer. “On Thorstein Veblen’s The Theory of the Leisure Class” (1985)

 

17. Other people set off firecrackers. We drop atomic bombs.

William Bourke (b.1927) U.S. executive vice president of the Ford Motor Company. On forced resignation of company president Lee Iacocca. New York Times (1978)

 

18. Of one thing be certain: if a CEO is enthused about a particularly foolish  acquisition, both his internal staff and his outside advisors will come up with whatever projections are needed to justify his stance. Only in fairy tales are emperors told that they are naked.

Warren Buffett (b.1930) U.S. entrepreneur and financier. Chairman’s Letter to Shareholders (February 27, 1998)

 

19. Some years back, a CEO friend of mine-in jest, it must be said-described the pathology of many big deals…With an impish look, he simply said: “Aw, fellas, all the other kids have one.”

Warren Buffett (b.1930) U.S. entrepreneur and financier. Chairman’s Letter to Shareholders (March 7, 1995)

20. Captains of Industry

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) British historian and essayist. Book subtitle. Past and Present (1843), bk. 4, ch. 4

 

21. When I’ve had a rough day, before I go to sleep I ask myself if there’s anything more I can do right now. If there isn’t I sleep sound.

  1. L. Colbert (1905-95) U.S. chairman of Chrysler Corporation. Newsweek (1955)

 

22. I get many invitations but I only join the boards of companies where I admier the management and believe in the company.

Jill Ker Conway (b. 1934) Australian historian. Financial Times (London) (October 2000)

 

23. For tired and harried executives, books are a balm for their worries.

Stuart Crainer, British business author. Corporate Man to Corporate Skunk (1997)

 

24. If executives could learn to get things right, and to quit wasting resources doing things over, then there would be work and jobs for all.

Philip B. Crosby (1926-2001) U.S. business executive and author. Quality Is Still Free (1996)

 

25. All the guys I knew and loved when they were so young and cute have become the Establishment. Especially Mr. Gates.

Esther Dyson (b.1951) U.S. knowledge entrepreneur and government adviser. Fortune (1993)

 

26. Managerial skill can not be painted on the outside of executives- it has to go deeper than that.

Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933) U.S. management thinker and author. Freedom and Co-ordination (ed. L. Urwick; 1949), ch. 2

 

27. Sometimes it is the men “higher up” who most need revamping-and they themselves are the last to recognize it.

Henry Ford (1863-1947) U.S. industrialist, automobile manufacturer, and founder of Ford Motor Company. My Life and Work (co-written with Samuel Crowther; 1922)

 

28.The nature of the job is you only hear problems-I guess that’s what a CEO’s job is.

William Clay Ford, JR. (b.1957) U.S. business executive. Interview Fortune (November 2002)

 

29. The salary of the chief executive of the large corporation is not a market reward for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.

  1. K. Galbraith (b.1908) U.S. economist and diplomat. Annals of an Abiding Liberal (1979)

 

30. It is practically impossible for a top management man, or even middle management, to be doing the degree and level of work that he should be doing and, at the same time, have a clean desk.

Harold S. Geneen (1910-97) U.S> telecommunications entrepreneur and C.E.O. of ITT. Managing (co-written with Alvin Moscow; 1984)

 

31. The worst disease which can afflict business executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it’s egotism.

Harold S. Geneen (1910-97) U.S> telecommunications entrepreneur and C.E.O. of ITT. Managing (co-written with Alvin Moscow; 1984)

 

32. You can know a person by the kind of desk he keeps…If the president of a company has a clean desk…then it must be the executive vice president who is doing all the work.

Harold S. Geneen (1910-97) U.S> telecommunications entrepreneur and C.E.O. of ITT. Managing (co-written with Alvin Moscow; 1984)

 

33. It’s time for IBM to perform and then talk, instead of talk and then perform.

Lou Gerstner (b.1942) U.S. chairman and C.E.O. of IBM. Fortune (1993)

 

34. In business, the mystique of conformity is sapping the dynamic individualism that is the most priceless quality an executive or businessman can possess.

  1. Paul Getty (1892-1976) U.S. entrepreneur, oil industry executive, and financier. How to Be Rich (1965)

 

35. The successful executive-the leader, the innovator-is the exceptional man.

  1. Paul Getty (1892-1976) U.S. entrepreneur, oil industry executive, and financier. How to Be Rich (1965)

 

36. Many executives continue to believe that they are “not in the technology business” and that they might just as well outsource their information technology needs. This is like an athlete saying that he is not in the strength business…these naysayers might as well say that they are not in the business of being in business.

  1. William Gurley, U.S. venture capitalist and journalist. Above the Crowd: Productivity Paradox (1997)

 

37. If you give top executives incentives based on profit, they may well apply the1/2 *2*3 rule. This will…result in a higher executive paycheck. But eventually it makes business unpopular and results in a lack of trust.

Charles Handy (b.1932) British business executive and author. Speech at the Second Workshop on Inventing the organization of the 21st Century, Munich, Germany. The ½*2*3 rule = half as many people, paid twice as well and producing three times the output results in profits. A C.E.O.’s formula for success as quoted by Handy. “The Age of Paradox” (April 1996)

 

38. I always say to executives that they should go and see King Lear, because they’ll be out there one day, wandering on the heath without a company car.

Charles handy (b.1932) British business executive and author. Interview, Times (London) (April 12, 1989)

 

39. I think in every country that there is at least one executive who is scared of going crazy.

Joseph Heller (1923-99) U.S. novelist. Something Happened (1974)

 

40. Executive: A man who can make quick decisions and is sometimes right.

Frank McKinney Hubbard (1868- 1930) U.S. humorist. The Roycraft Dictionary (1923)

 

41. The American people will find it hard…to accept a situation in which a tiny handful of steel executives whose pursuit of private power and profit exceeds their sense of public responsibility can show such utter contempt for the interests of 185 million Americans.

John F. Kennedy (1917-63) U.S. president. April 11, 1962. Said in a speech. Quoted in Farewell America (James Hepburn; 1968)

 

42. Regarded as a means, the businessman is tolerable. Regarded as an end, he is not so satisfactory.

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) British economist. Essays in Persuasion (1978)

 

43. Damn the great executives, the men of measured merriment, damn the men with careful smiles…oh, damn their measured merriment.

Sinclair Lewis (1885-1951) U.S. writer and social critic. Arrowsmith (1925)

 

44. I can tell more about how someone is likely to react in a business situation from one round of golf than I can from a hundred hours of meetings.

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)

 

45. Here’s a dime. Call up both of them!

Andrew William Mellon (1855-1937) U.S. financier, industrialist, public servant. Mellon’s response when Herbert Hoover asked for a nickel to call up a friend. Quoted in Presidential Anecdotes (Paul F. Boller, JR.; 1981)

 

46. The chief executive…like a juggler keeps a number of projects in the air: periodically one come down, is given a new burst of energy, and is sent back into orbit.

Henry Mintzberg (b.1939) Canadian academic and management theorist. “The Manager’s Job: Folklore and Fact,” Harvard Business Review (July-August 1975)

 

47. The best leaders are apt to be found among those executives who have a strong component of unorthodoxy in their characters. Instead of resisting innovation, they symbolize it.

David Ogilvy (1911-99) British advertising executive, founder and chairman of Ogilvy & Mather. Ogilvy on Advertising (1983)

 

48. Beware the manager who proclaims to the world he is a long-termer, beginning today.

  1. Boone Pickens (b.1928) U.S. oil company-executive and financier. Harvard Business Review (May-June 1986)

 

49. Chief executives, who themselves own few shared of their companies, have no more feeling for the average stockholder than they do for baboons in Africa.

  1. Boone Pickens (b.1928) U.S. oil company-executive and financier. Harvard Business Review (May-June 1986)

 

50. The trouble with corporate America is that too many people with too much power live in a box (their home), travel the same road every day to another box (their office).

Faith Popcorn (b.1947) U.S. trend expert and founder of Brain Reserve. The popcorn Report (1991)

 

51. I believe that nicotine is not additive.

Thomas Sandefur (1939-96) U.S. head of Brown & Williamson. Said at the 1994 U.S. Congressional Bearings on the tobacco industry. Quoted in New York Times (1997)

 

52. In retrospect, for a full-time chief executive to do what is almost a full-time job is extremely difficult.

Clive Thompson (b.1943) British chairman of the Confederation of British Industry and former C.E.O. of Rentokil. Referring to the position of CBI chairman, while acting as CEO of Rentokil. Sunday Times (London) (October 2000)

 

53. Today’s adaptive executives…must be experts not in bureaucracy, but in the co-ordination of ad-hocracy.

Alvin Toffler (b.1928) U.S. social commentator. The Adaptive Corporation (1985)

 

54. Nobody should be chief executive officer of anything for more than five or six years. By then he’s stale, bored, and utterly dependent upon his own clichés.

Robert Townsend (b.1920) U.S.  business executive and author. Up the Organization (1970)

 

55. All the president is a glorified PR man who spends his life flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway.

Harry S. Truman (1884-1972) U.S. president. Letter (November 1947)

 

56. People who eat white bread have no dreams.

Diana Vreeland (1903-89) U.S. magazine editor. Quoted on National Public Radio (1997)

 

57. An overburdened, stretched executive is the best executive, because he or she doesn’t have time to meddle, to deal in trivia, to bother people.

Jack Welch (b. 1935) U.S. former chairman and C.E.O. of General Electric. “Quotes of the Year,” Financial Times (London) (December 30, 1989)

 

58. To be vital, an organization has to repot itself, start again, get new ideas, renew itself. And I…should disappear from the company so my successor feels totally free.

Jack Welch (b. 1935) U.S. former chairman and C.E.O. of General Electric. Quoted in “The Ultimate Manager,” Fortune (November 22, 1999)

 

59. From now on, choosing my successor is the most important decision I’ll make. It occupies a considerable amount of thought almost every day.

Jack Welch (b. 1935) U.S. former chairman and C.E.O. of General Electric. 1991. Quoted in The New GE (Robert Slater; 1993)

 

60. Sure, I’m one of the fat cats. In fact, I’m the fattest cat, because I’m lucky enough to have this job.

Jack Welch (b. 1935) U.S. former chairman and C.E.O. of General Electric. Wall Street Journal (1997)

 

61. Not everyone is capable of being a C.E.O. It means you don’t get to pal around with all your employees and that you leave the sorority/fraternity approach to life behind, and you take on a role that is, in some respects, lonely.

Ann Winblad (b.1953) U.S. venture capitalist. “Women in the New Workplace,” Business Week (Mica Schneider; 2000)

 

62. It’s something no one ever tells you. You’re on and off airplanes all the time. It’s a Texas wrestling match with a new team against you every night.

Walter Wriston (b.1919) U.S. banker. New York Times (1993)