Organization

Organization

Reengineering must be fundamental, radical and drastic.
Michael Hammer & James Champy 1993, American management consultants

A mechanistic management system is appropriate to stable conditions. (...) The organic form is appropriate to changing conditions, which give rise constantly to fresh problems and unforseen requirements for action which cannot be broken down or distributed automatically arising from the functional roles defined within a hierarchic structure.
Tom Burns and G.M. Stalker, sociologists, in The Management of Innovation (1961)

No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.
Peter F. Drucker 1909-, American management guru

From the earliest times it has been recognized that nothing but confusion arises under multiple command.
Luther Gulick in Notes on the Theory of Organization

Always change processes and structures while they still function.
Unknown

Organization may be viewed from two standpoints which are analytically distinct but which are empirically united in a context of reciprocal consequences. On the one hand, any concrete organizational system is an economy; at the same time, it is an adaptive social structure.
Philip Selznick, sociologist, in Foundations of the Theory of Organization (1948)

Innovation has never come through bureaucracy and hierarchy. It’s always come from individuals.
John Scully, Chairman, Apple Computers

An empowered organization is one in which individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire, and opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to collective organizational success.
Stephen R. Covey, American management guru

Nothing is illegal if one hundred well-placed businessmen decide to do it.
Andrew Young 1932-, American diplomat

35 years of research have convinced me that managerial hierarchy is the most efficient, the hardiest, and in fact the most natural structure ever devised for large organizations.
Elliott Jacques, in In Praise of Hierarchy, in Harvard Business Review (Jan-Feb 1990)

It must be considered that there is nothing more difficult to carry out nor more doubtful of success nor more dangerous to handle than to initiate a new order of things.
Machiavelli 1446-1507, Italian statesman and philosopher

The ingenuity and the perseverance of industrial management in the pursuit of economic ends have changed many scientific and technological dreams into commonplace realities. It is now becoming clear that the application of these same talents to the human side of enterprise will not only enhance substantially these materialistic achievements, but will bring us one step closer to `the good society`.
Douglas Murray McGregor, psychologist, in The Human Side of the Enterprise (1957)

An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man.
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882, American essayist and poet

Guidelines for bureaucrats: 1. When in charge, ponder. 2. When in trouble, delegate. 3. When in doubt, mumble.
James H. Boren 1925-, American bureaucrat

It is impossible to understand the nature of a formal organization without investigating the networks of informal relations and the unofficial norms as well as the formal hierarchy of authority and the official body of rules, since the formally instituted and the informally emerging patterns are inextricably intertwined.
Peter M. Blau and W. Richard Scott in Formal Organizations: A Comparative Approach (1962)

It is a commonplace executive observation that businesses exist to make money, and the observation is usually allowed to go unchallenged. It is, however, a very limited statement about the purposes of business.
Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn in The Social Psychology of Organizations (1966)

Too little liberty brings stagnation and too much brings chaos.
Bertrand Russell 1872 - 1970, Brittish philosopher and writer