#3usefulthings — #7 — Great management quotes: Adizes, Horowitz and Bakunov
#3usefulthings is a series of small blog posts with short overviews of some interesting and useful facts. Other issues: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.
This issue will be about great management quotes. They are short and not related to each other, but somehow these three quotes appear in my mind from time to time.
1. Ichak Adizes. I read Managing Corporate Lifecycles on 3rd year of my university degree and that was the moment when I realized that I’m studying management, not economics or social science. Since then I annoyed a lot of people around me that they should learn about PAEI model.
One of the quotes at the beginning of the book still comes to my mind even 7 years after the book was read. Every time when I see a small company I recall it:
“You are standing at the top of the ladder, but the ladder is underground. You want to rise? Great. Start pumping the ladder up.”
Here’s the full paragraph below and link to the proper book chapter.
When I started the Adizes Institute, I was fortunate to get one of my brightest MBA students as my first employee. Sitting in my kitchen, he asked me about his career-succession ladder. That was a reasonable question. I remember teaching him that well-run organizations must have long-range goals and objectives. Company leaders must translate those goals into specific plans of action, one of which is career development for managers. But sitting in my kitchen with company that consisted of just him, me, $5000 in the bank, and no idea of how the unique and innovative consulting firm would work out, the question was ludicrous. My response to his question was, “Henrik! You are standing at the top of the ladder, but the ladder is underground. You want to rise? Great. Start pumping the ladder up.”
2. Ben Horowitz. If you haven’t read The Hard Thing About Hard Things you definitely should. But these exact quote is from the blog archive of Mark Andreessen, and it’s about micromanagement:
“Micromanagement is like fine wine. A little at the right times will really enhance things; too much all the time and you’ll end up in rehab”
3. Grigory Bakunov (aka Bobuk). This quote is in Russian and it’s more an idea than a exact quote from the Nonviolent Management talk:
“Management itself shouldn’t be a target, it’s weird to strive to manage people. Management is a last-ditch method to have things done.”
I highly recommend watching the whole talk, as it contains nice tips on working with software developers. And the quote above reminds that sometimes people want to be promoted without a real need.
