Management Theory Quotes

If the essential task of middle managers is reinvention, when is that task to be carried out? The answer is, during time that is not used up directing day-to-day business. The fact that managers have time on their hands (i.e., their operations tasks take up less than eight hours per day) gives them time for reinvention. The extra time is not waste, but slack. Without it they could function in only their operational roles. Reinvention would be impossible because the people who could make it happen are just too busy to take the time.Even companies that didn't fire their change centers have hurt themselves by encouraging their middle managers to stay extremely busy. In order to enable change, companies have to learn that keeping managers busy is a blunder. If you have busy managers working under you, they are an indictment of your vision and your capacity to transform that vision into reality. Cut them some slack.

Fate can be tricky and troublesome when not managed well.

There is a difference between failing and failure. Failing is trying something that you learn doesn't work. Failure is throwing in the towel and giving up.

Jay Samit

The most successful people have the same twenty-four hours in a day that you do.

Jay Samit

To be successful, innovation is not just about value creation, but value capture.

Jay Samit