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Organizations

1. A tiny ad closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one, and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by government.

Spiro Agnew (1918-96) U.S. vice president. Referring to network news divisions. Television address (November 13, 1969)

 

2. If factories are wanting, let it be remembered that the closet-philosopher is unfortunately too little acquainted with the admirable arrangements of the factory.

Charles Babbage (1792-1871) British mathematician and inventor. On the Economy of Machinery and Manufacture (1832)

 

3. The arrangement which ought to regulate the interior economy of a manufactory are founded on principles of deeper root than may have been supposed.

Charles Babbage (1792-1871) British mathematician and inventor. On the Economy of Machinery and Manufacture (1832)

 

4. Lured by tax concessions and a climate like northern California’s, dozens of multinational companies had moved into the business park that now employed over ten thousand people. The senior managements were…a new elite of administrators, enarques and scientific entrpreneurs.

  1. G. Ballard (b.1930) British novelist. Referring to new techno-parks/development zones, such as Sophia-Antipolis, in southern France. Super-Cannes (2000), ch. 1

 

5. Denying the authority of an organization communication is a threat to the interests of all individuals who derive a net advantage from their connection with the organization.

Chester Barnard (1886-1961) U.S. business executive and management theorist. Organization and Management (1948)

 

6. You can build a lasting competitive edge through the excellence of your organization structure.

Percy Barnevik (b.1941) Swedish former C.E.O. of ABB. Presentation to World Economic Forum (January 1997)

 

7. Our task is to create organizations we believe in and to do it as an offering, not a demand.

Peter Block (b.1935) U.S. writer. Stewardship (1993)

 

8. We are still unbelievably regulated.

Peter Bonfield (b.1944) British former C.E.O. of British Telecom. Sunday Times (London) (July 2000)

 

9. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some hire public relations officers.

Daniel J. Boorstin (b.1914) U.S. Pulitzer-prize-winning historian. The Image (1961)

 

10. More cohesion is needed rather than hierarchy.

Marvin Bower (1903-2003) U.S. C.E.O. of McKinsey & Company. Eurobusiness (February 1995)

 

11. Network of leaders.

Marvin Bower (1903-2003) U.S. C.E.O. of McKinsey & Company. Referring to the unique structure of McKinsey. The Will to Manage (1966)

 

 

12. Cultural competence refers to the ability to be able to harness and use culturally diverse myths, symbol, rituals, norms, and ideational symbols creatively to add to an organisations’s activities.

Stewart Clegg (b.1947) Australian writer. “Business Values and Embryonic Industry: Lessons from Australia,” Whose Business Values? Some Asian and Cross-Cultural Perspectives (Sally Stewart and Gabriel Donleavy, eds.;1995)

 

13. For any organization to survive, it must have distinctive competence.

Stewart Clegg (b.1947) Australian writer. “Business Values and Embryonic Industry: Lessons from Australia,” Whose Business Values? Some Asian and Cross-Cultural Perspectives (Sally Stewart and Gabriel Donleavy, eds.;1995)

 

14. In the knowledge economy, bureaucracy will increasingly be replaced by adhocracy, a holding unit that co-ordinates the work of numerous temporary workers.

Richard Crawford, U.S. investment banker. In the Era of Human Capital (1991)

 

15. The collapsible corporation.

Richard Crawford, U.S. investment banker. In the Era of Human Capital (1991)

 

16. Even the best leaders get submerged and stymied organizations that are highly centralized and highly consolidated.

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)

 

17.. Connected individuals and their knowledge, not the corporation, are becoming the key organizing unit.

Stan Davis (b.1939) U.S. business author. Blur (co-written with Christopher Meyer; 1998)

 

18 .Instead of vertical integrated, we have a kind of virtual integration that is taking hold. It shows up in the efficiency of companies. Our company, for example has a return on invested capital of roughly 290 per cent which…is significantly above our cost of capital…This says there is a fair bit of competitive power in a model like this.

Michael Dell (b.1965) U.S. chairman and C.E.O. of Dell Computer Corporation. Speech to the Canadian Club of Toronto, Canada. “Leadership in the Internet Economy” (April 7, 2000)

 

19. There are a lot of companies around that need to be restructured and split up, that never had a justification for being.

Peter F. Drucker (b.1909) U.S. management consultant and academic. Interview, Time (1990)

 

20.The chief weakness in business organization is lack of coordination.

Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933) U.S. management thinker and author. Lecture, New York (December 10, 1926)

 

21. If neighborhood organization is one among many methods of getting things, then it is not of great value; if, however, it is going to bring about a different mental life, it will give us an open mind, a flexible mind, a cooperative mind, then it is the greatest movement of our time.

Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933) U.S. management thinker and author. The New State (1918)

 

22. Top executives know that they have to shift to a talent-based, flat structure, but don’t know what to do with all the entitled, middle-aged managers they have.

Yasuhiro Fukushima (b.1948) Japanese business executive. Wired Asia (June 2000)

 

23. In the future the future the optimal form of industrial organization will be neither small companies nor large ones but network structures that share the advantages of both.

Francis Fukuyama (b.1952) U.S. economist and writer. Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity (1995)

 

24. Variety, change and speed are the determinants in the choice of the new organizational structure.

Jay R. Galbraith (b.1950) U.S. writer. Designing Organizations (1995)

 

25. Every company has two organizational structures: The formal one is written on the charts; the other is the everyday relationships of the men and women in the organization.

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

 

26. You can only stumble if you’re moving. Roberto Goizueta (1931-97) U.S C.E.O. of Coca-Cola. Fortune (May 1995)

 

27 .Highly-adaptive, informal networks move diagonally and elliptically skipping entire functions to get things done.

Daniel Goleman (b.1946) U.S. behavioral scientist, journalist and author. Emotional Intelligence (1996)

 

28. Developing a sound and healthy organization requires understanding the environment as much as understanding the organization.

Gary Hamel (b.1954) U.S. academic, business writer and consultant. Competing for the Fortune (co-written with C. K. Prahalad; 1994)

 

29. Neither Stalinist bureaucracy nor Silicon Valley provide an optimal ecosystem.

Gary Hamel (b.1954) U.S. academic, business writer and consultant. Competing for the Fortune (co-written with C. K. Prahalad; 1994)

 

30. It is sobering to reflect on the extent to which the structure of our business has been dictated by the limitations of the file folder.

Michael Hammer (b.1948) U.S. author and academic. Re-engineering the Corporation (co-written with James Champy; 1993)

 

31. It’s a gross distortion of nature to conceive of corporations as if they were Newtonian machines-an error which brought about bureaucracies, alienating work…It is a complement to human nature to build networks.

Charles M. Hampden-Turner (b.1934) British economist and management theorist. “Living in a World of Paradox: from Chaos to Self-Organization in the Knowledge Economy” (February 1998)

 

32. Organisations have their essential core of jobs and people surrounded by an open and flexible space which they fill with flexible workers and flexible supply contracts.

Charles Handy (b.1932) British business executive and author. The Empty Raincoat: Making Sense of the Future (1994)

 

33. The Shamrock organization.

Charles Handy (b.1932) British business executive and author. Referring to a three-part structure of core staff, suppliers and peripheral staff. The Future of Work (1984)

 

34. In large-scale diversified multi-product companies, it was impractical for sector management to be familiar in depth with each business, each product, each competitor segment, and each unit’s implied strategy.

Bruce Henderson (1915-92) U.S. consultant and founder Boston Consulting Group. Quoted in Competing against Time (George Stall, Jr. and Thomas M. Hunt; 1990)

 

35. There was little real judgment possible at the corporate level.

Bruce Henderson (1915-92) U.S. consultant and founder Boston Consulting Group. Quoted in Competing against Time (George Stall, Jr. and Thomas M. Hunt; 1990)

 

36. Well-ventilated, well-lighted, and sanitarily kept workrooms, rest-rooms and other creature comforts provided in factories, stores, and office buildings are largely the results of women’s presence in industry.

Edith Johnson (1891-1954) U.S. writer and educator. To women of the Business World (1923)

 

37. Women’s presence…has done more, I believe, than labor’s strikes and struggles to shorten the working day, and improve the conditions under which work is performed.

Edith Johnson (1891-1954) U.S. writer and educator. To women of the Business World (1923)

 

38. The whole ecosystem is here so I’m so much closer to the decision makers.

Woon Toon King (b.1967) Singaporean entrepreneur. Referring to his decision to relocate a high-tech business from  Asia to California. Forbes (July 2000)

 

39. History consists of the tracks made by strategy and includes the risks players take, whether they win or lose.

Gyorgy Konrad (b.1933) Hungarian writer. The Melancholy of Rebirth (1995)

 

40. Like magnetism, alignment is a force. It coalesces and focuses an organization and moves it forward.

George Labovitz (b.1940) U.S. writer, consultant and C.E.O. of Organizational Dynamics, Inc. The Power of Alignment (co-written with Victor Rosansky; 1997)

 

41. The organization exists to restrict and channel the range of individual actions and behaviors into a predictable and knowable routine.

Theodore Levitt (b.1925) U.S. management theorist, writer and editor. “Creativity is not Enough,” Harvard Business Review (1963)

 

42. Without organizations, there would be chaos and decay.

Theodore Levitt (b.1925) U.S. management theorist, writer and editor. “Creativity is not Enough,” Harvard Business Review (1963)

 

43. An organization should be outstanding in its performance if it has competent personnel, if it has leadership which develops highly effective groups and uses the overlapping group form of structure.

Rensis Likert (1903-81) U.S. psychologist. New Patterns of Management (1961)

 

44. Authoritarian organization tend to develop dependent people and few leaders, Participative organizations tend to develop emotionally and socially mature persons capable of effective interaction, initiative and leadership.

Rensis Likert (1903-81) U.S. psychologist. New Patterns of Management (1961)

 

45. If there is a single assumption that pervades conventional organizational theory, it is that authority is the central, indispensable means of managerial control.

Douglas McGregor (1906-64) U.S. academic, educator and management theorist. The Human Side of Enterprise (1960)

 

46. It is no more possible to create an organization today which will be a full, effective application of this theory than it was to build an atomic power plant in 1945.

Douglas McGregor (1906-64) U.S. academic, educator and management theorist. The Human Side of Enterprise (1960)

 

47. The introduction of a new grammar, not just new words, is the key to organizational transformation.

Michael D. McMaster (b.1943) U.S. writer. The Intelligence Advantage (1996)

 

48. The new theory of organization relates to a corporation as though it has characteristics of its own, such as intelligence, ability to learn, and a culture.

Michael D. McMaster (b.1943) U.S. writer. The Intelligence Advantage (1996)

 

49. Hotels are a wonderful business. They have been around since year zero when Jesus’ parents tried to get into a hotel and couldn’t.

David Michels (b.1946) British C.E.O. of Hilton Hotels. Sunday Times (London) (September 2000)

 

50. There have been seven directors or acting directors in six years. That’s not an organization. That’s an institutional collapse.

Daniel P. Moynihan (b.1927) U.S. politician. Referring to the problems of managing the CIA. Independent on Sunday (London; March 1997)

 

51. Changing the formal organization is sometimes the most effective way to influence the informal operating environment.

David A. Nadler (b.1948) U.S. author and organizational behavior specialist. Competing by Design (co-written with Michael A. Tushman; 1997)

 

52. The last remaining source of truly sustainable competitive advantage lies in what we’ve come to describe as organizational capabilities.

David A. Nadler (b.1948) U.S. author and organizational behavior specialist. Competing by Design (co-written with Michael A. Tushman; 1997)

 

53. Small companies right down to the individual can beat big bureaucratic companies ten times out of ten.

John Naisbitt (b.1929?) U.S. business executive and author. Megatrends (1982)

 

54. The pyramid inside companies is being flattened by IT.

Masahiro Noilia (b.1939) Japanese business executive. Wired Asia (June 2000)

 

55. It would give us flexibility because it is very unusual to find a company with one asset o its balance sheet that is worth $12 billion.

Phil Nolan (b.1953) British C.E.O. of Eircom. Referring to gas pipelines. Sunday Times (London) (September 2000)

 

 

56. In Japan, organizations and people in the organization are synonymous.

Kenichi Ohmae (b.1943) Japanese management consultant and theorist. “The Myth and Reality of the Japanese Corporation,” Chief Executive (Summer 1981)

 

57. Nobody knows how Honda is organized, except that it uses lots of project teams and is quite flexible.

Kenichi Ohmae (b.1943) Japanese management consultant and theorist. “The Myth and Reality of the Japanese Corporation,” Chief Executive (Summer 1981)

 

58. The full organization-the proposal boxes, quality circles and the like-looks organized and entrepreneurial as opposed to mechanical and bureaucratic.

Kenichi Ohmae (b.1943) Japanese management consultant and theorist. “The Myth and Reality of the Japanese Corporation,” Chief Executive (Summer 1981)

 

59. I realized that talent would get me as far as middle management, but beyond that point it would become a matter of politics and currying favor with bosses.

Masahiro Origuchi (b.1962) Japanese business executive. Wired Asia (June 2000)

 

60. The professional service firm-with its obsession on clients and projects-must ne the new organizational model.

Tom Peter (b.1942) U.S. management consultant and author. “Work Matters!” movement manifesto, www.tompeters.com (September 1999)

 

61. Women are becoming enormously successful…They’re running their businesses on what we call a familial model, a family instead of a hierarchical top-down military model. They work with, not over or for.

Faith Popcorn (b.1947) U.S. trend expert and founder of BrainReserve. Interview, phenomeNEWS (1999)

 

62. The newest technologies (flexible manufacturing, faster computers, and better telecommunications) have reduced the optimum size of any business.

Michael Porter (b.1947) U.S. strategist. Economist (January 1990)

 

63. In our complex industrial society, no business enterprise can succeed without sharing the burdens of the problems of other enterprises.

Ayn Rand (1905-82) U.S. writer. Atlas Shrugged (1957), pt. 1, ch. 3

 

64. The core corporation is…increasingly a façade, behind which teems an array of decentralized groups and subgroups continuously contracting with similarly diffuse working units all over the world.

Robert Reich (b.1946) U.S. economist and politician. The Work of Nations (1991)

 

65. Disconnected organizations spawn workaholism, a grim breed of estranged loners, running out the clock and avoiding one another.

Harvey Robbins, U.S. writer on business psychology. Trans Competition (co-written with Michael Finley; 1998)

 

66. It’s like breaking up a family row as an outsider.

Gerry Robinson (b.1948) Irish chairman of Granada Television and chairman of the Arts Council of England. Referring to committee disputes. Management Today (April 1999)

 

67. The working of great institutions is mainly the result of a vast mass of routine, petty malice, self-interest, carelessness and sheer mistake. Only a residual fraction is thought.

George Santayana (1863-1952) U.S. philosopher, novelist and poet. The Crime of Galileo (1958)

 

68. I believe that crisis really tends to help develop the character of an organization.

John Sculley (b.1939) U.S. partner of Sculley Brothers, former president of Pepsi, and C.E.O. of Apple Computers. Quoted in Fortune (1998)

 

69. Large, centralized organizations foster alienation like stagnant ponds breed algae.

Ricardo Semler (b.1959) Brazilian business executive and president of Semco. Maverick! (1993)

 

70. We talk about organizations in terms not unlike those used by an Ubongi medicine man to discuss diseases.

Herbert A. Simon (1916-2001) U.S. political scientist and economist. Administrative Behavior (1947)

 

71. Bringing the two together is like having a brake and an accelerator in the car. You can’t have one without the other.

Reuben Singh (b.1977) British entrepreneur and author. Referring to a scheme to introduce entrepreneurs to the traditional management structure of established companies. Management Today (September 1999)

 

72. Decentralization or not, an industrial corporation is not the mildest form of organization…I never minimized the administrative power of the chief executive.

Alfred P. Sloan (1875-1966) U.S. president of General Motors. My Years with General Motors (1964)

 

73. Everything possible starts in the organization from the bottom.

Alfred P. Sloan (1875-1966) U.S. president of General Motors. “The Most Important Things I Learned About Management,” System (August 1924)

 

74. Whatever the country, whatever the culture, whatever the time, when you become a big enough organization, you start to collapse and slow down.

Masayoshi Son (b.1943) Taiwanese C.E.O. of Softbank Corporation. Quoted in Giant Killers (Geoffrey James; 1996)

 

75. Corporate America is so hierarchical.

Martha Stewart (b.1942) U.S. chairperson of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. “The 50 Most Powerful Women in American Business,” Fortune (Patricia Sellers and Cora Daniels; October 1999)

 

76. In the past the man was first. In the future the system will be first.

  1. W. Taylor (1856-1915) U.S. engineer and author. The Principles of Scientific Management (1911)

 

77. It can take just as much effort to run a small company as a much larger one.

Barbara Thomas (b.1947) U.S. banker. Management Today (October 1999)

 

78. The new system takes us a giant step beyond mass production towards increasing customization, beyond mass marketing and distribution towards niches and micromarketing.

Alvin Toffler (b.1928) U.S. social commentator. Powershift (1990)

 

79. The new systems will challenge all the old executives turfs, the hierarchies, the sexual role divisions, the departmental barriers of the past.

Alvin Toffler (b.1928) U.S. social commentator. The Third Wave (1980)

 

80. If you have to have a policy manual, publish he Ten Commandments.

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

 

81. Fairly short life of chief executives in plcs.

Tony Trahar (b.1950) South African C.E.O. of Anglo American. Sunday Times (London) (May 2000)

 

82. Developing a sound and healthy organization requires understanding the environment as much as understanding the organization.

Kees Van Der Heijden, Dutch writer and consultant. Scenarios (1996)

 

83. We’re controlled by ideas and norms that have outlived their usefulness, that are only ghosts but have as much influence on our behavior as if they were alive.

Robert H. Waterman, JR. (b.1936) U.S. consultant and author. Adhocracy (1993)

 

84. The basic philosophy of an organization has far more to do with its achievements than do technological or economic resources, organizational structure, innovation and timing.

Thomas J. Watson, JR. (1914-93) U.S. C.E.O. of IBM. A Business and its Beliefs (1963)

 

85. For a large organization to be effective, it must be simple.

Jack Welch (b.1935) U.S. former chairman and C.E.O. of General Electric. Quoted in In Search of European Excellence (Robert Heller; 1997)

 

86. The things we fear most in organizations-fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances-need not be signs of impending disorder that will destroy us. Instead, fluctuations are the primary source of creativity.

Meg Wheatley (b.1941) U.S. academic, management theorist and president of Berkana Institute. Leadership and the New Science (1992)

 

87. It’s a hostile world out there, and organization, or we who create them, survive only because we build crafty and smart-smart enough to defend ourselves from the natural forces of destruction.

Meg Wheatley (b.1941) U.S. academic, management theorist and president of Berkana Institute. Leadership and the New Science Revised (1999)

 

88. The Organization Man.

William Whyte (1914-2000) U.S. author. Book title. The Organization Man (1956)

 

89. The trouble with organizing a thing is that pretty soon folks get to paying more attention to the organization than to what they’re organized for.

Laura Ingalls Wilder (1867-1957) U.S. novelist. Little Town on the Prairie (1941)

 

90. We are all caught up in a great economic system which is heartless. The modern corporation is not engaged in business as an individual. When we deal with it we deal with an…immaterial piece of society.

Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) U.S. president. The New Freedom (1913)

 

91. in organizations where people trust and believe in each other, they don’t get into regulating and coercing behaviors. They don’t need a policy for every mistake…people in these trusting environments respond with enormous commitment and creativity.

Walter Wriston (b.1919) U.S. banker. “Don’t Get Out of the Way!,” www.mgeneral.com (1997)