when someone has let me down, I don’t think it is right to punish those who haven’t by creating some new rule or policy. — 17: 249-250
A manager has got to remember that he is on stage every day. His people are watching him. Everything he does, everything he says, and the way he says it, sends off clues to his employees. These clues affect performance. So never forget you are on that stage. — 17: 261-262
Measuring the strength of a workplace can be simplified to twelve questions. These twelve questions don’t capture everything you may want to know about your workplace, but they do capture the most information and the most important information. They measure the core elements needed to attract, focus, and keep the most talented employees. Here they are: Do I know what is expected of me at work? Do I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right? At work, do I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day? In the last seven days, have I received recognition or praise for doing good work? Does my supervisor, or someone at work, seem to care about me as a person? Is there someone at work who encourages my development? At work, do my opinions seem to count? Does the mission/purpose of my company make me feel my job is important? Are my co-workers committed to doing quality work? Do I have a best friend at work? In the last six months, has someone at work talked to me about my progress? This last year, have I had opportunities at work to learn and grow? — 27: 408-422
Since each of these four business outcomes — productivity, profit, retention, and customer service — is vitally important to every company, and since the easiest lever for a manager to pull is the employee lever, you would have thought the air would be thick with research examining the links between employee opinion and these four business outcomes. It isn’t. — 31: 468-471
Managers were encouraged to focus on complex initiatives like reengineering or learning organizations, without spending time on the basics. The stages on the mountain reveal that if the employee doesn’t know what is expected of him as an individual (Base Camp), then you shouldn’t ask him to get excited about playing on a team (Camp 2). If he feels as though he is in the wrong role (Camp 1), don’t pander to him by telling him how important his innovative ideas are to the company’s reengineering efforts (Camp 3). If he doesn’t know what his manager thinks of him as an individual (Camp 1), don’t confuse him by challenging him to become part of the new “learning organization” (Camp 3). Don’t helicopter in at seventeen thousand feet, because sooner or later you and your people will die on the mountain. — 53: 809-816
F. Scott Fitzgerald believed that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, and still maintain the ability to function.” — 55: 835-837