"If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings—and put compensation as a carrier behind it—you almost don't have to manage them."
"Make your top managers rich and they will make you rich."
"Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it."
"Catch someone doing something right."
"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig."
"Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don't interfere as long as the policy you've decided upon is being carried out."
"Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end."
"Management by objectives works if you first think through your objectives. Ninety percent of the time you haven't."
"Don't equate activity with efficiency. You are paying your key people to see the big picture. Don't let them get bogged down in a lot of meaningless meetings and paper shuffling. Announce a Friday afternoon off once in a while. Cancel a Monday morning meeting or two. Tell the cast of characters you'd like them to spend the amount of time normally spent preparing for attending the meeting at their desks, simply thinking about an original idea."
"Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish."
"We cling to hierarchies because our place in a hierarchy is, rightly or wrongly, a major indicator of our social worth."
"Management is efficiency in climbing the ladder of success; leadership determines whether the ladder is leaning against the right wall."
"Hire people who are better than you are, then leave them to get on with it . . . ; Look for people who will aim for the remarkable, who will not settle for the routine."
"When hiring key employees, there are only two qualities to look for: judgement and taste. Almost everything else can be bought by the yard."
"The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided."
"A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world."
"Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them."
"I believe the real difference between success and failure in a corporation can be very often traced to the question of how well the organization brings out the great energies and talents of its people."
"Focus on a few key objectives ... I only have three things to do. I have to choose the right people, allocate the right number of dollars, and transmit ideas from one division to another with the speed of light. So I'm really in the business of being the gatekeeper and the transmitter of ideas."
"So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work."
"Management is, above all, a practice where art, science, and craft meet."
"If you are the master be sometimes blind, if you are the servant be sometimes deaf."
"The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people, but real management is developing people through work."
