The Knowing-Doing Gap Quotes

“Planning is essentially unrelated to organizational performance”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

“Actually putting your people first and treating them as if they matter to the organization’s success, although easy to talk about and easy to understand, is notoriously difficult to implement.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

“The tendency for organizations to place too much value on people who seem smart and who talk a lot, and too little value on people who do smart things and get a lot of things done, is exacerbated by the way that MBAs and executives are taught and by the methods used in most management consulting firms.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

“Eileen Shapiro suggested that one definition of a mission statement is “In some companies, a talisman, hung in public places, to ward off evil spirits.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

“The problem is that there are too many organizations where having a mission or values statement written down somewhere is confused with implementing those values.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

“In a world of conceptual frameworks, fancy graphics presentations, and, in general, lots of words, there is much too little appreciation for the power, and indeed the necessity, of not just talking and thinking but of doing—and this includes explaining and teaching—as a way of knowing. Rajat”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

“The usual place to stand is in the existing set of constraints, issues, and opportunities that confront the organization…. Using this approach, managers typically conduct a financial and organizational analysis, identify what opportunities and threats exist, what strengths and weaknesses the organization has, and then formulate a strategy that is intended to exploit the opportunities and minimize or eliminate the threats…. The boat is patched but it is still the same boat and most likely will only continue on the old course at about the same velocity or a little faster…. Our recommended approach is to stand in a future that is not directly derived from present conditions and circumstances…. Although the future is informed by the past, it is as “past-free” as possible…. When I say the future is “past-free,” I mean that the future should not be an extrapolation, extension, or modification of the past.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

“We don’t reject informal talk, formal presentations, and quantitative analysis. These are often important precursors to intelligent action. It’s just that they are not substitutes for action.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

“Now consider the essence of the management education process—the business school experience—as practiced at leading institutions in the United States as well as those throughout the world. The essence of this education process is talk—learning how to sound smart in case discussions or to write smart things (talk turned into writing) on essay examinations based on business cases. In business school classes, a substantial part of students’ grades is based on how much they say and how smart they sound in class discussion. Robert”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

“very wary of judging people just on the basis of how smart they sound, and particularly on their ability to find problems or fault with ideas. These are dangerous people. They are smart enough to stop things from happening, but not action oriented enough to find ways of overcoming the problems they have identified.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

“Just as mission statements and talk can substitute for action rather than informing such action, planning can be a ritualistic exercise disconnected from operations and from transforming knowledge into action. Of course, planning can facilitate developing knowledge and generating action. But it does not invariably do so and often does the opposite.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

“ONE OF THE MAIN BARRIERS to turning knowledge into action is the tendency to treat talking about something as equivalent to actually doing something about it. Talking about what should be done, writing plans about what the organization should do, and collecting and analyzing data to help decide what actions to take can guide and motivate action. Indeed, rhetoric is frequently an essential first step toward taking action. But just talking about what to do isn’t enough. Nor is planning for the future enough to produce that future. Something has to get done, and someone has to do it. Yet,”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

“Dumping technology on a problem is rarely an effective solution.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

“most workplace learning goes on unbudgeted, unplanned, and uncaptured by the organization…. Up to 70 percent of workplace learning is informal.”
― Jeffrey Pfeffer, The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action