Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits (J-B Warren Bennis Series)

you don’t do it excellently, don’t do it at all. Because if it’s not excellent it won’t be profitable or fun, and if you’re not in business for fun or profit, what the hell are you doing here?

If they can’t release their spare energies toward your goals, they’ll moonlight for somebody who doesn’t have job descriptions and policy manuals.

This book does not come to grips with the problem of America’s 20 million poor: it deals with the 80 million psychiatric cases who do have jobs.

I learned that I needed to subordinate myself to those I led.Your job as leader is get to the lowest level and find out the tools your people need—whether it’s a shovel or a computer—to get the job done. When we were starting

best two-man team I ever saw started with the philosophy: Neither of us is very good, but our weaknesses (and strengths) may be compensating. Like yang and yin, man and wife.We expect to make a lot of mistakes, but we hope to have the courage to correct them no matter how silly we look in the process. If we do our best, split up the chores, check i

Business fads may come and go, but there will always be a need for such pure voices in the wilderness.

POLAROID POWER. If you’re responsible for a group of hamburger stands, service stations, banks, nursing homes or supermarkets, where appearance is critical, take a Polaroid camera along on your trips. If you see an obsolete sign, a dirty counter or a slovenly employee, take a picture. Show it to the manager.Tell him it will

Some meetings should be long and leisurely. Some should be mercifully brief. A good way to handle the latter is to hold the meeting with everybody standing up.The meetees won’t believe you at first.Then

Moral: Don’t hire a master to paint you a masterpiece and then assign a roomful of schoolboy-artists to look over his shoulder and suggest improvements.