Management Today

Chris Gray

One of our favorite clients is ICI, the largest industrial enterprise in the UK and one of the world's largest chemical companies. Their former chairman, Sir John Harvey-Jones, has written several books on modern management. In Making It Happen (Collins, 8 Grafton Street, London W 1., UK) he shares the following:

The Sayings of Sir John

1. Management is about maintaining the highest rate of change that the organization and the people within it can stand.

2. The total avoidance of risk is the highest risk of all.

3. The greatest help in setting a strategy is a hefty slice of cynicism and the openness of mind to reexamine cherished beliefs.

4. The salesman who always gets the sale is almost certainly selling too soft.

5. The task of leadership is to make the status quo more dangerous than launching into the unknown.

6. The ideal organization and the one that has the greatest chance of success is one where, if you ask anyone from the chairman down to the newest recruit on the shop floor what the business is trying to do, you'd get the same answer.

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