William H. Whyte > Quotes

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”
― William H. Whyte

“The great enemy of communication, we find, is the illusion of it. We have talked enough; but we have not listened. And by not listening we have failed to concede the immense complexity of our society—and thus the great gaps between ourselves and those with whom we seek understanding.”
― William H. Whyte

“The I.B.M. machine has no ethic of its own; what it does is enable one or two people to do the computing work that formerly required many more people. If people often use it stupidly, it's their stupidity, not the machine's, and a return to the abacus would not exorcise the failing. People can be treated as drudges just as effectively without modern machines.”
― William H. Whyte, The Organization Man

“In further institutionalizing the great power of the majority, we are making the individual come to distrust himself. We are giving him a rationalization for the unconscious urging to find an authority that would resolve the burdens of free choice. We are tempting him to reinterpret the group pressures as a release, authority as freedom, and that this quest assumes a moral guise makes it only the more poignant.”
― William H. Whyte, The Organization Man: The Book That Defined a Generation

“But the process should not be confused with science. When tests are used as selections devices, they're not a neutral tool; they become a large factor int he very equation they purport to measure. For one thing, the tests tend to screen out - or repel - those who would upset the correlation. If a man can't get into the company in the first place because he isn't the company type, he can't very well get to be an executive and be tested in a study to find out what kind if profile subsequent executives should match. Long before personality tests were invented, of course, plenty of companies proved that if you only hire people of a certain type, then all your successful men will be people of that type. But no one confused this with the immutable laws of science.”
― William H. Whyte, The Organization Man

“Their attitude toward another aspect of organization shows the same bias. What of the "group life", the loss of individualism? Once upon a time it was conventional for young men to view the group life of the big corporations as one of its principal disadvantages. Today, they see it as a positive boon. Working with others, they believe, will reduce the frustration of work, and they often endow the accompanying suppression of ego with strong spiritual overtones. They will concede that there is often a good bit of wasted time in the committee way of life and that the handling of human relations involves much suffering of fools gladly. But this sort of thing, they say, is the heart of the organization man's job, not merely the disadvantages of it. "Any man who feels frustrated by these things," one young trainee with face unlined said to me, "can never be an executive".”
― William H. Whyte, The Organization Man

“Thoreau once said if you see a man approach you with the obvious intent of doing you good, you should run for your life; it is hard to restrain the impulse in talking with social engineers.”
― William H. Whyte, The Organization Man: The Book That Defined a Generation

“Whatever their occupation, almost all organization people feel their particular job is depression-proof.”
― William H. Whyte, The Organization Man: The Book That Defined a Generation

“The same man who will quote from Benjamin Franklin on thrift for the house organ would be horrified if consumers took these maxims to heart and started putting more money into savings and less into installment purchases.”
― William H. Whyte Jr., The Organization Man

“Society is itself an education in the extrovert values, and rarely has there been a society that has preached them so hard. No man is an island, but how John Donne would writhe to hear how often, and for what reasons, the thought is so tiresomely repeated.”
― William H. Whyte

“Someday someone is going to create a stir by proposing a radical new tool for the study of people. It will be called the face-value technique. It will be based on the premise that people often do what they do for the reasons they think they do.”
― William H. Whyte Jr., The Organization Man

“Someday someone is going to create a stir by proposing a radical new tool for the study people. It will be called the face-value technique. It would be based on the premise that people often do what they do for the reasons they think they do. The use of this technique will lead to many pitfalls, for it is undeniably true that people do not always act logically or say what they mean. But I wonder if it would produce findings any more unscientific than the opposite course.”
― William H. Whyte, The Organization Man

“...the spectacle of people following current custom for lack of will or imagination to do anything else is hardly a new failing.”
― William H. Whyte Jr., The Organization Man

“Most are interested in the philosophical only to the extent of finding out what the accepted view is in order that they may accept it and get on to the practical matters.”
― William H. Whyte, The Organization Man: The Book That Defined a Generation