Harold S. Geneen

“If your desk isn't cluttered, you probably aren't doing your job.”

“In the business world, everyone is paid in two coins: cash and experience. Take the experience first; the cash will come later.”

“You can't run a business or anything else on a theory.”

“Leadership cannot really be taught. It can only be learned.”

“Every company has two organizational structures: The formal one is written on the charts; the other is the everyday relationship of the men and women in the organization.”

“The worst disease which can afflict business executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it's egotism.”

“We must not be hampered by yesterday's myths in concentrating on today's needs.”

“You can know a person by the kind of desk he keeps. If the president of a company has a clean desk then it must be the executive vice president who is doing all the work.”

“A true leader has to have a genuine open-door policy so that his people are not afraid to approach him for any reason.”

“Performance stands out like a ton of diamonds. Nonperformance can always be explained away.”

“Leadership is practiced not so much in words as in attitude and in actions.”

“Management must manage!”

“It is much more difficult to measure nonperformance than performance.”

“Uncertainty will always be part of the taking charge process.”

“You cannot run a business, or anything else, on a theory.”

“Facts from paper are not the same as facts from people. The reliability of the people giving you the facts is as important as the facts themselves.”

“The best way to inspire people to superior performance is to convince them by everything you do and by your everyday attitude that you are wholeheartedly supporting them.”

“Management manages by making decisions and by seeing that those decisions are implemented.”

“Managers in all too many American companies do not achieve the desired results because nobody makes them do it.”

“The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success: Concentration, Discrimination, Organization, Innovation and Communication.”