THOUGHT PROVOKING MANAGEMENT QUOTES

It is my great pleasure to share some of my self-composed management prose collection. The quotes, extracted from my own library, represent my past experiences and observations in the corporate sector. I hope you will perceive these as food for serious ponder in relation to your respective work environment.

# Be observant and alert. You may run your department as the head. But your second-line subordinates may be controlling it silently, especially when they collaborate for a common purpose. For all you know, they are building their little kingdom within the department to take care of their self-interests.

# Do not tolerate a story teller in your team. He neither means what he says nor says what he means. Whatever he tells to substantiate his statements are mere stories, which are never real. If not controlled, he will bring your entire team through a spinning tale of confusion.

# A leader may not be directly responsible for faults arising within his team. However, he is still accountable by virtue of his position. 

# Sturdy leadership involves pro-acting, pre-empting and ironing out issues; not reacting, scrambling and confronting issues. 

# Managers should learn to hear with their eyes and listen with their minds when interfacing with people they are dealing with. Do not just hear what the other party says aloud but also listen to what is not said verbally by observing his body language.

# Secure the inputs of the long serving subordinates who have served the company with full dedication. Not because they are always right, but because they have tasted more experiences of being wrong.

# Look back in time to learn from past experiences in your work. Look ahead in time to determine your future. Look around to recognise reality surrounding you now. Look within you to realise yourself. 

# Many top officers know how to map out and document improvement plans, few know to translate the plans into immediate action. A corporation needs top officers profound in both planning and implementation to materialise successful improvements.

# The easiest way for a young manager to grow in experience is to surround himself with people who are more experienced than he is.

# Say not, “I’ve done no wrong” but ask, “How much more do I need to do right?”

# Managers are always concerned about correcting what is wrong but not pursue ahead what is right.

# There must be a clear objective in whatever you do. Begin by thinking what result you want to achieve at the end before you decide what you want to do at the beginning. 

# I have known two types of CEO – one type really functions like a chief executive officer; the other acts like a chief entertainment officer. 

# Face up to work issues by deciding either one of the three options …… talk about the issues; live with the issues; or act on the issues regardless whether prudently or otherwise. Which do you prefer?

# When a failure occurs in an organization, more attention should be given to find out the cause than identifying the culprit. When an intended misdeed occurs, immediate appropriate action on the culprit must be taken. Failure may be tolerable.  Intentional misdeeds are not tolerable, for if not weeded immediately, these are cancers that will kill the organisation.

# A corporate officer is not a discipline master who makes sure everybody under him obeys rules rigidly and be subjected to tight scrutiny. Rather, he should remove the barriers to allow talented subordinates exercise creativity and some form of autonomy via guidance. 

# Learning without thinking is as good as learning for nothing. Thinking without learning is as good as heading for disaster. 

# Bosses give directions and say, “You go!” Leaders pave directions and say, “We go.”

# Generalists like meetings to fill up their daily routine. Specialists like tasks to act out their daily routine.

# Any innovation initiative inevitably carries with it some elements of failure risk. Be bold to face up to such possible failure risk than not innovating at all. Be prepared to learn from a failure for the sake of future improvement by trying out than remaining stagnant by totally avoiding failure risk.

# To mitigate any unforeseen failure risk that may arise by implementing an entirely new creation, it is prudent to run a pilot experiment or simulation first. If the pilot results turn out positive, then go ahead to launch a mega innovation drive. 

# Knowledge by itself does not translate into value. Only when acquired knowledge is fully reflected upon holistically can it become your wisdom. 

# A picture tells more than a thousand words. A word can command actions more than a thousand pictures. So, penetrative communication is a combination of pictures and words. 

# You administer processes, work flow, computers, documents and machines. You manage people to administer the former.  See the vast difference in the practical definitions for administration and management?

# Why do businesses propound that shareholders come first? Is it not practical business sense that employees should come first, customers second, and then finally shareholders? Without satisfied and committed employees to deliver excellent services, there will not be loyal customers. Without strong customer loyalty, there will not be vibrant business growth. And without vibrant business growth, there will not be good returns to shareholders. See the logical domino effect?

# In order to cater for the overall optimal interest of the company, its directors must look at the best approach to balance up the interests of all stakeholder parties which contribute to its business one way or another. 

# The root word for “manage” is “man”. So, management has more to do with manpower in organisations than anything else. 

# Every corporation is primarily in the people business. Products and services are its secondary business.

# Profound management involves recruiting good and right employees into the fold. At the same time, it also involves managing out the bad and wrong ones.

# The highest echelon of management must continually face up to two inevitable challenges – loss of practical knowledge when experienced employees leave or retire, and slackening of productivity as employees advance in age.

# A successful turnaround can never happen if you have senior officers who give excuses one after another instead of delivering.

# With modern technology, machine power apparently overshadows human power. But do not forget it is human power that creates machines and the necessary system logic for putting machines to work.  Thus, human power, than machine power, must earn management’s priority attention.

# Many machines and systems have failed because of the failure to engage the right people to design the right machines and systems.

# Promotion from within may be the wisest choice only if you have a steady flow of good candidates coming into your organisation.

# If you are looking for an able assistant from within your department, will you choose the one who is very good but difficult to control, or the one who is average but easy to manage? Well, it depends on your own calibre in managing people under you. 

# Common scene: Officers who can express well but not so talented always have time to recommend management decisions. The really talented but quiet ones are always busy solving problems emanating from such wrong decisions.