Quotes about Responsibility

Delegators love to pull people into meetings, too. In fact, meetings are a delegator's best friend. That's where he gets to seem important. Meanwhile, everyone else who attends is pulled away from getting real work done.

When someone takes your time, it doesn't cost them anything, but it costs you everything.

Later is where excuses live. Later is where good intentions go to die. Later is a broken back and a bent spirit. Later says "all-nighters are temporary until we've got this figured out." Unlikely. Make the change now.

Stress is passed from organization to employee, from employee to employee, and then from employee to customer.

When you treat people like children, you get children's work. Yet that's exactly how a lot of companies and managers treat their employees.

As a manager, you have to accept the fact that people will make mistakes, but not intentionally, and that mistakes are the price of learning and self-sufficiency.

To successfully work with other people, you have to trust each other. A big part of this is trusting people to get their work done wherever they are, without supervision."‡

You rarely regret saying no. But you often wind up regretting saying yes.

The bottom line is that you shouldn't hire people you don't trust, or work for bosses who don't trust you.

One of the worst ways is the non-apology apology, which sounds like an apology but doesn't really accept any blame. For example, "We're sorry if this upset you." Or "I'm sorry that you don't feel we lived up to your expectations." Whatever.

When you treat people like children, you get children's work. Yet that's exactly how a lot of companies and managers treat their employees. Employees need to ask permission before they can do anything. They need to get approval for every tiny expenditure.

With a small team, you need people who are going to do work, not delegate work. Everyone's got to be producing. No one can be above the work.