Harvard Business Publishing > Quotes

“Managers who aspire to be ethical must challenge the assumption that they’re always unbiased and acknowledge that vigilance, even more than good intention, is a defining characteristic of an ethical manager.”
― Harvard Business Review, HBR's 10 Must Reads Boxed Set (6 Books)

“When you combine a culture of discipline with an ethic of entrepreneurship, you get the magical alchemy of great performance.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership

“Great leaders rise out of adversity.”
― Harvard Business Review

“Like employees, children build self-esteem by doing things that are hard and learning what works.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

“A leader has to have the emotional capacity to tolerate uncertainty, frustration, and pain. He has to be able to raise tough questions without getting too anxious himself.”
― Harvard Business Review, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership

“When we see people acting in an abusive, arrogant, or demeaning manner toward others, their behavior almost always is a symptom of their lack of self-esteem. They need to put someone else down to feel good about themselves.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

“Your decisions about allocating your personal time, energy, and talent ultimately shape your life’s strategy. I have a bunch”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

“Put yourself where your strengths can produce results.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

“Successful careers are not planned. They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values. Knowing where one belongs can transform an ordinary person—hardworking and competent but otherwise mediocre—into an outstanding performer.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

“By contrast, those with leadership potential are motivated by a deeply embedded desire to achieve for the sake of achievement.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership

“there is one quality that sets truly great managers apart from the rest: They discover what is unique about each person and then capitalize on it.”
― Harvard Business Review, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing People

“But problem solving, however necessary, does not produce results. It prevents damage. Exploiting opportunities produces results.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership

“Don’t find fault, find a remedy. —Henry Ford”
― Harvard Business School Press, Improving Business Processes

“If you’re not guided by a clear sense of purpose, you’re likely to fritter away your time and energy on obtaining the most tangible, short-term signs of achievement, not what’s really important to you. And”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

“silencing doesn’t resolve anything; rather than erase differences,”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Communication

“Resilient people and companies face reality with staunchness, make meaning of hardship instead of crying out in despair, and improvise solutions from thin air.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

“Communication isn’t as simple as saying what you mean. How you say what you mean is crucial, and differs from one person to the next, because using language is learned social behavior: How we talk and listen are deeply influenced by cultural experience. Although we might think that our ways of saying what we mean are natural, we can run into trouble if we interpret and evaluate others as if they necessarily felt the same way we’d feel if we spoke the way they did.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Communication

“Don’t worry about the level of individual prominence you have achieved; worry about the individuals you have helped become better people. This is my final recommendation:”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

“All too often, people make the mistake of focusing too much on the content of their”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Communication

“The lesson I learned from this is that it’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time than it is to hold to them 98% of the time.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

“Depressed, ruthless bosses create toxic organizations filled with negative underachievers. But if you’re an upbeat, inspirational leader, you cultivate positive employees who embrace and surmount even the toughest challenges.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

“emotional intelligence is carried through an organization like electricity through wires. To”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

“Wherever there is success, there has to be failure.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

“organizations need to shift their emphasis from getting more out of people to investing more in them, so they are motivated—and able—to bring more of themselves to work every day.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

“Idea in Brief Are you an ethical manager? Most would probably say, “Of course!” The truth is, most of us are not. Most of us believe that we’re ethical and unbiased. We assume that we objectively size up job candidates or venture deals and reach fair and rational conclusions that are in our organization’s best interests. But the truth is, we harbor many unconscious—and unethical—biases that derail our decisions and undermine our work as managers. Hidden biases prevent us from recognizing high-potential workers and retaining talented managers. They stop us from collaborating effectively with partners. They erode our teams’ performance. They can also lead to costly lawsuits.”
― Harvard Business Review, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing People

“The climate for relationships within an innovation group is shaped by the climate outside it. Having a negative instead of a positive culture can cost a company real money. During Seagate Technology’s troubled period in the mid-to-late 1990s, the company, a large manufacturer of disk drives for personal computers, had seven different design centers working on innovation, yet it had the lowest R&D productivity in the industry because the centers competed rather than cooperated. Attempts to bring them together merely led people to advocate for their own groups rather than find common ground. Not only did Seagate’s engineers and managers lack positive norms for group interaction, but they had the opposite in place: People who yelled in executive meetings received “Dog’s Head” awards for the worst conduct. Lack of product and process innovation was reflected in loss of market share, disgruntled customers, and declining sales. Seagate, with its dwindling PC sales and fading customer base, was threatening to become a commodity producer in a changing technology environment. Under a new CEO and COO, Steve Luczo and Bill Watkins, who operated as partners, Seagate developed new norms for how people should treat one another, starting with the executive group. Their raised consciousness led to a systemic process for forming and running “core teams” (cross-functional innovation groups), and Seagate employees were trained in common methodologies for team building, both in conventional training programs and through participation in difficult outdoor activities in New Zealand and other remote locations. To lead core teams, Seagate promoted people who were known for strong relationship skills above others with greater technical skills. Unlike the antagonistic committees convened during the years of decline, the core teams created dramatic process and product innovations that brought the company back to market leadership. The new Seagate was able to create innovations embedded in a wide range of new electronic devices, such as iPods and cell phones.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Innovation

“Do your organization’s ethics resonate with your own values? If not, your career will likely be marked by frustration and poor performance.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

“Indeed, our recent research has led us to conclude that one of the most reliable indicators and predictors of true leadership is an individual’s ability to find meaning in negative events and to learn from even the most trying circumstances. Put another way, the skills required to conquer adversity and emerge stronger and more committed than ever are the same ones that make for extraordinary leaders.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership

“I have never encountered an executive who remains effective while tackling more than two tasks at a time. Hence, after asking what needs to be done, the effective executive sets priorities and sticks”
― Harvard Business Review, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership

“To work in an organization whose value system is unacceptable or incompatible with one’s own condemns a person both to frustration and to nonperformance.”
― Harvard Business School Press, HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself