Quotes about Organization

I'd rather get ten men to do the job than to do the job of ten men.

I believe serious progress (in the abolition of war) can be achieved only when men become organized on an international scale and refuse, as a body, to enter military or war service.

With few exceptions, the only instances in which mainstream firms have successfully established a timely position in a disruptive technology were those in which the firms' managers set up an autonomous organization charged with building a new and independent business around the disruptive technology.

It's no surprise, really. Processes are often hard to see—they're a combination of both formal, defined, and documented steps and expectations and informal, habitual routines or ways of working that have evolved over time. But they matter profoundly. As MIT's Edgar Schein has explored and discussed, processes are a critical part of the unspoken culture of an organization.1 They enforce "this is what matters most to us.

In a small, independent organization, these small wins will generate energy and enthusiasm. In the mainstream, they would generate skepticism about whether we should even be in the business. I want my organization's customers to answer the question of whether we should be in the business. I don't want to spend my precious managerial energy constantly defending our existence to efficiency analysts in the mainstream.

They order, said I, this matter better in France.

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.

It is because the body is a machine that education is possible. Education is the formation of habits, a superinducing of an artificial organization upon the natural organization of the body.

Our brain is organized to act and feel before we think. This is also how our brain develops—sequentially, from the bottom up. The developing infant acts and feels, and these actions and feelings help organize how they will begin to think.

Good Working Habit No. 2: Do Things in the Order of Their Importance.

I do not believe we can repair the basic fabric of society until people who are willing to work have work. Work organizes life. It gives structure and discipline to life. It gives meaning and self-esteem to people who are parents. It gives a role model to children.

Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.