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A country with many laws is a country of incompetent lawyers,”
between alternatives. It is rarely a choice between right and wrong. It is at best a choice between “almost right” and “probably wrong”—but much more often a choice between two
The only rigorous method, the only one that enables us to test an opinion against reality, is based on the clear recognition that opinions come first—and that this is the way it should be.
know what to do with hypotheses—one does not argue them; one tests them. One finds out which hypotheses are tenable, and therefore worthy of serious consideration, and which are eliminated by the first test against observable experience.
executive who goes out and looks for himself will soon find that he needs a different measurement. The averages serve the purposes of the insurance company, but they are meaningless, indeed misleading, for personnel management decisions.
work, we now know, is not distributed as an average, but is concentrated in a very small part of the work force, e.g., young unmarried women.
Solly Zuckerman,
As long as we can handle the events on the operating level by adaptation rather than by thinking, by “feel” rather than by knowledge and analysis, operating people—in government, in the military, or in business—will be untrained, untried, and untested when, as top executives, they are first confronted with strategic decisions.
recording where the time goes. This
The next step, however, in which the executive is asked to focus his vision on contribution advances from the procedural to the conceptual, from mechanics
Making strengths productive is fundamentally an attitude expressed in behavior. It is fundamentally respect for the person—
Chapter 5, “First Things First,” serves as antiphon to the earlier chapter, “Know Thy Time.” These two chapters might be
dedication, determination, and serious purpose.
5. The effective decision, which the final chapters discuss, is concerned with rational action. There is no longer a broad and clearly marked path which the executive
They need to concentrate and to set priorities instead of trying to do a little bit of everything.
The knowledge worker, as has been said again and again in this book, is rapidly becoming the major resource of the developed countries.
