Quotes about Managers

From a company’s perspective, founders are unique individuals – the creators – but so too are the managers during different stages of its growth.

We are American farmers. We are Americans. We are farmers. Our grandsires freed this virgin continent,plowed it from East to West, and gave it to us.This land is for us and for our children tomake richer and more fruitful. We grow foods, fibers - fifteen times asmuch as we use. We grow men and women -- farmers, Presidents, and Senators, generals of industry,captains of commerce, missionaries, builders. Communists would call us capitalists, because we own land and we own tools. Capitalists might choose to call us laborers,because we work with our hands. Others may call us managers, because wedirect men and manage materials. Our children call us "Dad." We are also deacons, stockholders, mechanics, veterinarians, electricians, schoolboard members, Rotarians, voters, scientists,neighbors, men of good will. Our rules are Nature's rules, the laws of God. We command the magic of the seasons andthe miracles of science, because we obey Nature's rules. Our raw materials are soil and seed, animals, the atmosphere and the rain, and the mighty sun. We work with brains. We toil with musclesof steel, fed by the fires of lightning and byoils from the inner earth. We are partners with the laboratory, withthe factory, and with all the people. We provide industry with ever-renewableraw materials from the inexhaustible world ofplants. We buy products from the labor ofevery fellow-citizen.Our efficiencies have raised great cities andhappy towns, and have given all the peoplemeat and bread. We believe in work and in honor We believe in freedom. We are grateful for the American freedomthat has let us earn so many blessings. We know that liberty is our most preciouspossession. At the ballot-boxes and on thebattlefield we shall defend it. We have proven a new pattern of abun-dance. We pray that we may also help tomake a pattern for peace.

Managers are people who do things right, and leaders are people who do the right things.

The manager administers, the leader innovates. The manager maintains, the leader develops. The manager relies on systems, the leader relies on people. The manager counts on controls, the leader counts on trust. The manager does things right, the leader does the right thing.

There is very little difference between the general manager, the sales manager, the factory manager, the office manager, the factory man, the office man and the salesman. We have different ideas and different work, but when you come down to it, there is just one thing we have to deal with throughout the whole organization - that is the "MAN." Here is the way it lines up: The Manufacturer general manager sales manager factory manager office manager factory man office man salesMan This is a man proposition pure and simple; that includes the ladies too, by the way-all mankind. I think this one point is something we should keep in mind at all times regardless of what our occupations or duties are; we are just men-men standing together, shoulder to shoulder, all working for one common good; we have one common interest, and the good of each of us as individuals affects the greater good of the company. From a talk made at the opening session of The International Time Recording Company Sales Convention, held at Endicott, NY, January 25-30, 1915.

Baseball is a simple game. If you have good players, and you keep them in the right frame of mind, the manager is a success. The players make the manager. It's never the other way. Managing is not running, hitting, or stealing. Managing is getting your players to put out one hundred percent year after year. A player does not have to like a manager and he does not have to respect a manager. All he has to do is obey the rules. Talent is one thing. Being able to go from spring to October is another. You just got caught in a position where you have no position. [Explaining why he was forced to cut a utility player]

A player does not have to like a manager and he does not have to respect a manager. All he has to do is obey the rules.

I'm slowly becoming a convert to the principle that you can't motivate people to do things, you can only demotivate them. The primary job of the manager is not to empower but to remove obstacles.

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

The antithesis of democracy is class dictatorship, whether by groups of bankers, investors, managers, politicians, lawyers or union members. Over a considerable part of the world the unspeakable doctrine is being preached that the ideal of a democratic State is a snare and a delusion. A politician if he denies the existence of the essentials of democracy and denies it in such a way as to create class feeling, is not working in the interest of democracy even though he protests to the high heavens that that is his objective.

What managers decide to stop doing is often more important than what they decide to do.

Unless a business can stay in the black over the long term, averaging the bad years with good, it cannot sustain itself. A manager may have laudable social intentions of providing security for his employees, better products at lower prices for his customers. But if he cannot keep the business going in realizing these intentions he is defeated before he begins.

If we are to have a stabilized market demand, selling pressure should be maintained . . . perhaps increased . . .at the first sign of a decline in business. I know of no single way business managers can do more to stabilize market demand than through greater stabilization of sales and advertising expenditures.

We can't win at home. We can't win on the road. As general manager, I just can't figure out where else to play.

I say get an education. Become an electrician, a mechanic, a doctor, a lawyer - anything but a fighter. In this trade, it's the managers that make the money and last the longest.

Its bizarre that the produce manager is more important to my children's health than the pediatrician.

If I had to sum up in one word what makes a good manager, I'd say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.

Many managers know how to get things done through people, to turn people into tools, but not how to direct them, inspire them or motivate them. Leadership provides a scenario to the people they're leading. People are willing to work their butts off if you give them an objective, show them how to reach it, and prove that you mean it through action and consistency.

The chief executive who knows his strengths and weaknesses as a leader is likely to be far more effective than the one who remains blind to them. He also is on the road to humility - that priceless attitude of openness to life that can help a manager absorb mistakes, failures or personal shortcomings.

Today's newest breed of employee is the self-manager. These workers are the ones who survived the recent. waves of downsizing, both by seeking and capitalizing, on new opportunities and by learning new skills. Because these employees increasingly possess the skills and technological tools to supervise themselves-individually or in teams-they are eliminating the need for layers of management. More executives will soon find their jobs redundant, while self-managing frontline workers become highly valued and virtually fire-proof. Everyone should strive to become self-managed. It is clearly the direction business is taking.

Telephone message on his manager's answering machine shortly before dying of heroin overdose: I need help bad, man.

The difference in companies is people. I would rather have a first-class manager running a second-rate business than a second-class manager running a first-rate business.

IBM'S Basic BELIEFS AND FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES Our beliefs, which should be well known to every IBMer, are: 1. Respect for the individual. 2. A desire to have the best customer service of any company in the world. 3. The conviction that an organization should pursue all tasks with the idea that they can be accomplished in a superior manner. In addition to these, there is a set of fundamental principles which guide IBM management in the conduct of the business. Each manager should consider them as a basis for his decisions. They are: 1. To provide intelligent, aggressive capable management. 2. To serve our customers as efficiently and effectively as possible. 3. To continually improve our products and our technology. 4. To provide a maximum degree of satisfaction on the part of our employees in their assigned tasks. 5. To recognize the obligation to our stockholders to provide an adequate return on their investment. 6. To play our part in furthering the progress of the communities in which our facilities are located.

A good manager is a man who isn't worried about his own career but rather the careers of those who work for him

I don't believe in just ordering people to do things. You have to sort of grab an oar and row with them. My philosophy is to stay as close as possible to what's happening. If I can't solve something, how the hell can I expect my managers to.

A manager is not a person who can do the work better than his men; he is a person who can get his men to do the work better than he can.

Great managers constantly seek to minimize uncertainty.

The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.

This whole creation is essentially subjective, and the dream is the theater where the dreamer is at once: scene, actor, prompter, stage manager, author, audience, and critic.

Sometimes the manager must perform with the courage and agility of a circus performer, carefully crossing the highwire between short-term problems and long-term objectives.