Management

Management in all business and human organization activity is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal.

Sourced

Quotes are arranged chronologically

Before 20th century

• Management of many is the same as management of few. It is a matter of organization.
  • Sun Tzu (c. 6th century BC) The Art of War

19th century

• A superintendent of a road fifty miles in length can give its business his professional attention and may be constantly on the line engaged in the direction of its details; each person is personally known to him, and all questions in relation to its business are at once presented and acted upon; and any system however imperfect may under such circumstances prove comparatively successful.
  In the government of a five hundred miles in length a very different state exists. Any system which might be applicable to the business and extent of a short road would be found entirely inadequate to the wants of a long one. and I am fully convinced that in the want of system perfect in its details, properly adapted and vigilantly enforced, lies the true secret of their [the large roads’] failure; and that this disparity of cost per mile in operating long and short roads, is not produced by a difference in length, but is in proportion to the perfection of the system adopted.
  • Daniel McCallum (1855). cited in: Alfred D. Chandler, Jr. (1962). Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of the Industrial Enterprise. p. 21-22

20th century, first half

• Much is said about scientific management of work. It is a narrow view which restricts the science which secures efficiency of operation to movements of the muscles. The chief opportunity for science is the discovery of the relations of a man to his work — including his relations to others who take part — which will enlist his intelligent interest in what he is doing. Efficiency in production often demands division of labor. But it is reduced to mechanical routine unless workers see the technical, intellectual, and social relationships involved in what they do, and engage in their work because of the motivation furnished by such perceptions. The tendency to reduce such things as efficiency of activity and scientific management to purely technical externals is evidence of the one-sided stimulation of thought given to those in control of industry — those who supply its aims. Because of their lack of all-round and well-balanced social interest, there is not sufficient stimulus for attention to the human factors and relationships in industry. Intelligence is narrowed to the factors concerned with technical production and marketing of goods. No doubt, a very acute and intense intelligence in these narrow lines can be developed, but the failure to take into account the significant social factors means none the less an absence of mind, and a corresponding distortion of emotional life.
  • John Dewey (1916) Democracy and Education, section seven: Implications of Human Association

• To manage is to forecast and plan, to organize, co-ordinate and to control.
  • Henri Fayol (1916) cited in: Gerald A. Cole (2003) Management theory and practice. p.6

20th century, second half

1960s

• Fourteen basic and well-known managing processes make up the components from which a management system for any business can be fashioned.
  1. Setting objectives: ...
  2. Planning strategy: ...
  3. Establishing goals: ...
  4. Developing a company philosophy: ...
  5. Establishing policies: ...
  6. Planning the organization structure: ...
  7. Providing personnel: ...
  8. Establishing procedures: ...
  9. Providing facilities: ...
  10. Providing capital: ...
  11. Setting standards: ...
  12. Establishing management programs and operational plans: ...
  13. Providing control information: ...
  14. Activating people: ...
  • Marvin Bower (1966). The Will to Manage: Corporate Success Through Programmed Management. Page 26, New York: McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-006735-X

1970s

• Management is a far more homely business than its would be scientists suggest, more closely allied to cookery than any other human activity. Like cooking, it rests on a degree of organisation and on adequate resources. But just as no two chefs run their kitchens the same way, so no two managements are the same.
  • Robert Heller (1972) The Naked Manager p. 12

• Without institution there is no management. But without management there is no institution.
  • Peter Drucker (1973) MANAGEMENT: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices p.6

1980s

• Understanding the concept of competency is a prerequisite to understanding his integrated model of management.
  • Richard Boyatzis (1982) Competent manager : a model for effective performance. p. 10

• You manage things, you lead people. We went overboard on management and forgot about leadership. It might help if we ran the MBAs out of Washington.
  • Grace Hopper (1987), quoted in "The Wit and Wisdom of Grace Hopper" by Philip Schieber, OCLC Newsletter, No. 167 (March/April 1987)

• A company will get nowhere if all of the thinking is left to management.
  • Akio Morita (1987). Made in Japan, p. 149

• The remarkable thing about management is that a manager can go on for years making mistakes that nobody is aware of, which means that management can be a kind of a con job.
  • Akio Morita (1987). Made in Japan, p. 154

• Management of an industrial company must be giving targets to the engineers constantly; that may be the most important job management has in dealing with its engineers.
  • Akio Morita (1987). Made in Japan, p. 168

1990s

• The worker is not the problem. The problem is at the top! Management!
  • W. Edwards Deming (1993, p. 54) cited in: Melanie M. Minarik (2008) Building Knowledge Through Sensemaking. p.13

• I compared some passages of articles of [Robert McNamara] in the late 1960s, speeches, on management and the necessity of management, how a well-managed society controlled from above was the ultimate in freedom. The reason is if you have really good management and everything's under control and people are told what to do, under those conditions, he said, man can maximize his potential. I just compared that with standard Leninist views on vanguard parties, which are about the same. About the only difference is that McNamara brought God in, and I suppose Lenin didn't bring God in. He brought Marx in.
  • Noam Chomsky (1995) Class Warfare, [1]

21st century

• It is better to first get the right people on the bus, the wrong people off the bus, and the right people in the right seats, and then figure out where to drive.
  • Jim C. Collins (2001). Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't p.41.

• The most effective leaders of companies in transition are the quiet, unassuming people whose inner wiring is such that the worst circumstances bring out their best. They're unflappable, they're ready to die if they have to. But you can trust that, when bad things are happening, they will become clearheaded and focused.
  • Jim C. Collins (2001) attributed in: Strategy & business. No 22-25. p.46

• You can't manage knowledge – nobody can. What you can do is to manage the environment in which knowledge can be created, discovered, captured, shared, distilled, validated, transferred, adopted, adapted and applied.
  • Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell, Learning to Fly - Practical Knowledge Management from Leading and Learning Organizations (2005), Chapter 2, pages 24-25.

• Mission is at the heart of what you do as a team. Goals are merely steps to its achievement. Mission has an eternal quality. Goals are time bound and once achieved, are replaced by others.
  • Patrick Dixon (2005) Building a Better Business - the key to management, marketing and motivation. p.66

See also

• Bureaucracy
• Business
• Government
• Leadership
• Manager
• Plans
• Strategy