100 Deep Management Quotes To Improve Your Life (2023)

1. “A strong performance management system not only helps in getting everyone aligned on the over-organization mission and goals but also goes a long way in building a culture of trust and meritocracy.” – Saurabh Nigam, Vice President-Human Capital, Omidyar Network.

2. “Every industry and every organization will have to transform itself in the next few years. What is coming at us is bigger than the original internet and you need to understand it, get on board with it, and figure out how to transform your business.” — Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media

3. “Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week. – Charles Richards

4. “Project management is like juggling three balls – time, cost and quality. Program management is like a troupe of circus performers standing in a circle, each juggling three balls and swapping balls from time to time.” ~ G. Reiss

5. “Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.” — Charles Richards

6. “You can buy a man’s time. You can buy a man’s physical presence in a given place. You can even buy a measured number of skilled muscular motions per hour per day. But you cannot buy enthusiasm. You cannot buy loyalty. You have to earn those things.”

7. “First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.” ~ Aristotle

8. “All the managers I interviewed had the same sense of identity and self-assurance. None of them were arrogant. Instead, they were clear about who they were and what needed accomplishing. They used that sense of self to engage their team and learn each team member’s strengths and contributions. Their courage and confidence were infectious to their team and to anyone who crossed their paths.”

9. “You find time the same place you find spare change: in the nooks and crannies. You find it in the cracks between the big stuff—your commute, your lunch break, the few hours after your kids go to bed.” ― Austin Kleon

10. “The challenge of leadership is to be strong, but not rude; be kind, but not weak; be bold, but not bully; be thoughtful, but not lazy; be humble, but not timid; be proud, but not arrogant; have humor, but without folly.” ~ Jim Rohn

11. “The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a dime.” — Babe Ruth, professional baseball player

12. “Organizations that are able to promote a performance management culture that is in keeping with their mission and values, whilst enhancing employee engagement will thrive.” – Kessar Kalim, Director of HR, The London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

13. “A manager of people needs to understand that all people are different. This is not ranking people. He needs to understand that the performance of anyone is governed largely by the system that he works in, the responsibility of management.” – W. Edwards Deming, Eminent Professor, Author, Lecturer, and management consultant.

14. “Don't equate activity with efficiency. You are paying your key people to see the big picture. Don't let them get bogged down in a lot of meaningless meetings and paper shuffling. Announce a Friday afternoon off once in a while. Cancel a Monday morning meeting or two. Tell the cast of characters you'd like them to spend the amount of time normally spent preparing for attending the meeting at their desks, simply thinking about an original idea.”

15. “The real test is not whether you avoid this failure because you won't. It's whether you let it harden or shame you into inaction, or whether you learn from it; whether you choose to persevere.” — Barack Obama, lawyer and former US President

16. “If you believe people are fundamentally good and worthy of trust, you must be honest and transparent with them. That includes telling them when they are lagging behind in their performance. But having a mission-driven, purposeful workplace also requires that you approach people with sensitivity.” – Laszlo Bock, Author.

17. “The essence of performance management is that it is a feedback loop that allows people to assess if they are doing the right things and working well within the culture of the company.” – Ravi Bhogaraju, Global Head Talent & Development, Archroma.

18. “One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.” – Tony Robbins

19. “Customers are who we build our apps for, so we want to give them what they want and need, while empathizing with their struggles and frustrations. For me it’s not necessarily the mantra of the customer is always right, but do everything with the customer in mind.” – Jason Pace, Software Engineering Manager at Apptentive

20. “One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.”

21. “Know your value add. I’ve seen three main PM archetypes: engineer turned PM, designer turned PM, and businessperson turned PM. As a member of the latter bucket, I recognize that I could never out-engineer an engineer or out-design a designer. Instead, I leverage my knowledge of our business and customers to better prioritize what features make it onto the roadmap and help my team understand why we’re building those features.” – Lauren Chan Lee, Director of Product Management at Care.com

22. “Instagram still doesn’t have an iPad app. Twitter still doesn’t let you edit tweets or search DMs. You can launch with less than you think. You may not even need it, ten years later!” – Sahil Lavingia, Founder and CEO at Gumroad

23. “We think, mistakenly, that success is the result of the amount of time we put in at work, instead of the quality of time we put in.” — Arianna Huffington, businesswoman, co-founder of HuffPost, and CEO of Thrive Global

24. “As much as we think of performance management as numeric and thus perfectly quantifiable, it is as much a product of context and social science as the products we design and develop.” – Steven Sinofsky, Former president, Windows Division at Microsoft.

25. “Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.” – Charles Richards

26. “Habitual procrastinators will readily testify to all the lost opportunities, missed deadlines, failed relationships and even monetary losses incurred just because of one nasty habit of putting things off until it is often too late.” ― Stephen Richards

27. “When a risk occurs, with some ingenuity, this may open up an opportunity, and conversely when pursuing an opportunity there will be associated risks. Risks are generally deemed acceptable if the possible gains exceed the possible losses.”

28. “Happiness is good management of expectations and good management means making order and assembling the contingent elements of the "do's'" and the "don'ts", the "maybe yes'" and the "maybe not's". When we really want to live in agreement with ourselves and find peace with the surrounding world, good management is liberating. ( " Expectations " )”

29. “There is no doubt that creativity is the most important human resource of all. Without creativity, there would be no progress, and we would be forever repeating the same patterns.” — Edward de Bono, Author, doctor, and inventor of the term ‘lateral thinking'

30. “I think there is something, more important than believing: Action! The world is full of dreamers, there aren’t enough who will move ahead and begin to take concrete steps to actualize their vision.” ~ W. Clement Stone

31. “A really effective performance management program is closely entwined with the needs of the organization and looks at talent development as central to the conversation, as well as embracing regular discussion and feedback.” – Kevin Lyons, Former cricketer.

32. “The secret to achievement is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then waste no time starting on the first one.” – Mark Twain, Writer.

33. “You’ve got to know what you want. This is central to acting on your intentions. When you know what you want, you realize that all there is left then is time management. You’ll manage your time to achieve your goals because you clearly know what you’re trying to achieve in your life. – Patch Adams

34. “Very few managers know how to effectively tap the biggest source of performance improvement available to them, namely, the creativity and knowledge of the people who work for them.” – Alan G. Robinson, Author.

35. “If you pick the right people and give them the opportunity to spread their wings and put compensation as a carrier behind it, you almost don't have to manage them.” — Jack Welch, former chairman and CEO of General Electric

36. “All things aside, there is one role that all product managers play, and that is of a problem solver. That’s what the product manager role is all about – finding out problems, figuring out the best ways to solve them, and increasing the business value in the process.” – Josh Fechter, CEO and Co-founder of Squibler

37. “In poorly run projects, problems can go undetected until the project fails. It’s like the drip … drip … drip of a leaky underground pipe. Money is being lost, but you don’t see it until there is an explosion.” ~ Joy Gumz

38. “It is changing, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is but the world as it will be.” ~ Isaac Asimov

39. “The great myth is the manager as orchestra conductor. It’s this idea of standing on a pedestal and you wave your baton and accounting comes in, and you wave it somewhere else and marketing chimes in with accounting, and they all sound very glorious. But management is more like orchestra conducting during rehearsals, when everything is going wrong.”

40. “This morning I stopped to watch the geese fly, even though I didn’t have the time to do so. And I realized that not having the time to do something might be the very reason why I need to do it.” ― Craig D. Lounsbrough

41. “The job facing production managers focuses on how to help their team maintain hope while also addressing the sometimes brutal or dismal facts of their situation. If the truth of their position remains unseen, they will never grow the skills necessary to resolve it.”

42. “Consistency of performance is essential. You don't have to be exceptional every week, but as a minimum, you need to be at a level that even on a bad day, you get points on the board.” – Sean Dyche, Football Manager.

43. “The critical ingredient is getting off your butt and doing something. It's as simple as that. A lot of people have ideas, but there are few who decide to do something about them now. Not tomorrow. Not next week. But today. The true entrepreneur is a doer, not a dreamer.” — Nolan Bushnell, businessman and co-founder of Atari, Inc.

44. “Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person—not just an employee—are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled. Satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, which leads to profitability.” — Anne Mulcahy, former chairperson and CEO of Xerox Corporation

45. “When companies create ridiculous and demoralizing rules to halt the outlandish behavior of a few individuals, it's a management problem. There's no sense in alienating your entire workforce because you don't know how to manage performance. It makes a bad situation that much worse.” – Travis Bradberry, Bestselling Author.

46. “At the heart of every product person, there’s a desire to make someone’s life easier or simpler. If we listen to the customer and give them what they need, they’ll reciprocate with love and loyalty to your brand.” – Francis Brown, Product Development Manager at Alaska Airlines

47. “In the past, a leader was a boss. Today's leaders must be partners with their people … they no longer can lead solely based on positional power.” — Ken Blanchard, motivational speaker and author of “The One Minute Manager”

48. “The biggest product management challenge is resource alignment. Team sizes are always changing and frequently lopsided. Some weeks you have plenty of design bandwidth and no iOS, others you have no design and all iOS. Having a deep backlog of well prioritized projects is key to operating an efficient team.” – Ethan Hollinshead, Senior Product Manager at Strava

49. “The most challenging one to manage is you. “Self-leadership” isn’t a concept that most of us think about all that often. Yet leadership capability relates as much to how we lead ourselves as how we lead others. Some of the greatest barriers we face along the path o pushing our ideas to fruition lie within us.” ~ Scott Belsky

50. “Time is not money. Time is the space where money is earned and measured. Wealth minded people aim to maximize how much value they create and minimize the time it takes to create that value.” ― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr

51. “Performance management starts from the top by tailoring strategies which can be translated into meaningful targets, and trickles down to managers for setting goals & making this process effective by helping them understand the big picture and owning up careers of their team members.” – Colin Mendes, Head HR, VoltasBeko.

52. “Performance management by philosophy needs to be more developed for employee development and to monitor and track performance and development, and not really a tool to decide employee salary revision.” – Ajay Ambewadikar, People Lead, APAC.

53. “Your performance depends on your people. Select the best, train them and back them. When errors occur, give sharper guidance. If errors persist or if the fit feels wrong, help them move on. The country cannot afford amateur hour in the White House.” – Donald Rumsfeld, Politician and Businessman.

54. “It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.” ~ Nelson Mandela

55. “Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They're absolutely free and worth a fortune.” — Sam Walton, businessman and founder of Walmart and Sam's Club

56. “If you’ve got an idea, start today. There’s no better time than now to get going. That doesn’t mean quit your job and jump into your idea 100% from day one, but there’s always small progress that can be made to start the movement.”

57. “I have witnessed boards that continued to waste money on doomed projects because no one was prepared to admit they were failures, take the blame and switch course. Smaller outfits are more willing to admit mistakes and dump bad ideas.” ~ Luke Johnson

58. “As you navigate through the rest of your life, be open to collaboration. Other people and other people’s ideas are often better than your own. Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.” ~ Amy Poehler

59. “Good execution of performance appraisal is not the solution. More people are realizing that improving how performance appraisal are done is an attempt to do the wrong thing better. If you insist on doing the wrong thing, I suppose you might as well do it better but how about just not doing the wrong thing at all?” – John Hunter, Surgeon.

60. “Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is simply passing the time. Action with Vision is making a positive difference.” - this is actually my favorite. These words are not just about project management, but about life in general. It's inspiring!

61. “A performance management system is the foundation of performance excellence in an organization and therefore it should be simple, straightforward, intuitive, aligned with organizational goals and have flavors of organization values.” – Kaustubh Sonalkar, Author.

62. “The very essence of leadership is that you have to have a vision. It’s got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. You can’t blow an uncertain trumpet.” ~ Reverend Theodore Hesburgh

63. “You can't delegate digital transformation for your company… You and your executives have to own it! Executives need to engage, embrace, and adopt new ways of working with the latest and emerging technologies.”  — Barry Ross, CEO, and Co-Founder, Ross & Ross International

64. “The secret to modern life is finding the measure in time management. I have two kids, career and I travel, and I don’t think my life is any different than most couples. The most valuable commodity now for many people is time and how to parcel that out. – Hugh Jackman

65. “Inspire your people to think like entrepreneurs, and whatever you do, treat them like adults. The hardest taskmaster of all is a person’s own conscience, so the more responsibility you give people, the better they will work for you.” ~ Richard Branson

66. “Companies that invest more in digital transformation actually outperform their peers over time. These companies are more prepared for disruption, better able to monetize new digital channels, and better able to build a bigger user base. What's more, this phenomenon exists regardless of industry.” — Geoff Cubitt, CEO of Isobar US

67. “Having a right and continuous performance management system helps an organization to convert, monitor, provide feedback and course correct, strategize the long-term objectives and its execution.” – Srinivas Chunduru, Founder and CEO, VANS.

68. “Almost everything worthwhile carries with it some sort of risk, whether it's starting a new business, whether it's leaving home, whether it's getting married, or whether it's flying into space.” — Chris Hadfield, former astronaut, engineer, and fighter pilot

69. “Customer love means two sides of the same coin to me. On one side is knowing your customer and building fantastic experiences for them. Your dedication and passion to making their life easier and delighting them feeds into the other side. When approached this way, not only will you have a loyal user base, they will also be your strongest advocates and critics.” – Andrew Wang, Senior Product Manager at Gap

70. “People are more inclined to be drawn in if their leader has a compelling vision. Great leaders help people get in touch with their own aspirations and then will help them forge those aspirations into a personal vision.” ~ John Kotter

71. “Focus on a few key objectives ... I only have three things to do. I have to choose the right people, allocate the right number of dollars, and transmit ideas from one division to another with the speed of light. So I'm really in the business of being the gatekeeper and the transmitter of ideas.”

72. “Service, in short, is not what you do, but who you are. It is a way of living that you need to bring to everything you do, if you are to bring it to your customer interactions.” – Betsy Sanders, Author Fabled Service

73. “I have come to realize that customers love companies that make them feel good about themselves—companies that reflect what they, the customers, believe about themselves. Customers fall in love with the company that says to them, ‘You are unique. You are great. We are the only ones who can make you feel that way. Fall in love with us and we will continue to make you feel great.’” – J.N. Halm

74. “Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could.” — Steve Jobs, co-founder and former CEO and chairman of Apple

75. “Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.” ~ Gail Devers

76. “The bad news is that ignoring the performance of people is almost as bad as shredding their effort in front of their eyes. … The good news is that by simply looking at something that somebody has done, scanning it and saying, ‘uh huh,’ [you] dramatically improve people’s motivations.” – Dan Ariely, Professor.

77. “I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the office of a thoroughly nasty business concern."

78. “A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent.” ~ Douglas MacArthur

79. “Rarely are opportunities presented to you in a perfect way. In a nice little box with a yellow bow on top. ‘Here, open it, it's perfect. You'll love it.' Opportunities—the good ones—are messy, confusing, and hard to recognize. They're risky. They challenge you.” — Susan Wojcicki, CEO of YouTube

80. “A good design shows respect for your customer and you’re either respectful of their time or respectful of what it is that they desire, and so it makes it a very fundamental element to everything that you do.” – Penny Wilson, Designer and Owner of Penny Wison Design

81. “Performance management should be measured by the potential to stay in business, to protect investment, to ensure future dividends and jobs through the improvement of product and services for the future, not by the quarterly dividend.” – W. Edwards Deming, Engineer and Statistician.

82. “To give real service, you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.” – Don Alden Adams, President of Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society of Pennsylvania

83. “Your brain at positive performs significantly better than at negative, neutral, or stressed. Your intelligence rises, your creativity rises, your energy levels rise. In fact, we’ve found that every single business outcome improves.” – Shawn Achor, Author.

84. “Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt

85. “Lamb said, ‘If you had issues with him, I could have spoken to HR. Arranged an intervention.’ He tapped Moody’s shoulder with his foot. ‘Breaking his neck without going through your line manager, that shit stays on your record.”

86. Don’t let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use.” – Earl Nightingale

87. “Don’t waste this day or any day, because you will one day regret the usefulness of this day because, you made it useless. Redeem the time and live your dream by making this day and any other day useful.” ― Ned Bryan Abakah

88. “People are definitely a company’s greatest asset. It doesn’t make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps.” – Mary Kay Ash, Businesswoman and Founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics.

89. “A good way to be unsure about something is to ask for one more opinion. More opinions often lead to indecision, not clarity. If necessary, ask for a few, add your own, make a call, and move on. Nearly all decisions are temporary, but stalling is permanent time lost.” – Jason Fried, Co-founder and CEO of Basecamp

90. “There are only three measurements that tell you nearly everything you need to know about your organization’s overall performance: employee engagement, customer satisfaction, and cash flow. It goes without saying that no company, small or large, can win over the long run without energized employees who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it.” – Jack Welch, Former Chairman and CEO, General Electric.

91. “One cannot measure a manager’s knowledge and performance in a vacuum. It involves their participation in business activities while bringing all of themselves to the process of development, including their spiritual, personal, and skill & ability development.”

92. “I want to see a world in which entrepreneurs give time to their visions to reality so that they have more money, more family time, and more support, a world in which they can stop working so hard and start living!”

93. “The fundamental task of management remains the same: to make people capable of joint performance through common goals, common values, the right structure, and the training and development they need to perform and to respond to change.” – Peter F. Drucker, Educator and Author.

94. “Collaboration is important not just because it’s a better way to learn. The spirit of collaboration is penetrating every institution and all of our lives. So learning to collaborate is part of equipping yourself for effectiveness, problem-solving, innovation, and life-long learning in an ever-changing networked economy.” ~ Don Tapscott

95. “I consider my ability to arouse enthusiasm among men the greatest asset I possess. The way to develop the best that is in a man is by appreciation and encouragement.” – Charles R. Schwab, Founder and chairman, the Charles Schwab Corporation.

96. “I don't believe in luck or in hard work without the so called ‘work smart’. It's not all about how you work hard but it's about how you manage your time, resources, mind to work together for a better output.” – Jayson Zabate, Senior Security Consultant.

97. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into smaller manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” — Mark Twain, writer, humorist, and entrepreneur

98. “At the core of effective performance management is successful communication. To deliver feedback that will be taken on board, it’s critical that you speak so that people around you want to listen.” – Julian Treasure, Orator.

99. “The causation of great organizations is the desire to make meaning. Having that desire doesn’t guarantee that you’ll succeed, but it does mean that if you fail, at least you failed doing something worthwhile.” ~ Guy Kawasaki

100. “The real challenge in crafting strategy lies in detecting subtle discontinuities that may undermine a business in the future. And for that there is no technique, no program, just a sharp mind in touch with the situation.”

101. “Customers are who we build our apps for, so we want to give them what they want and need while empathizing with their struggles and frustrations. For me, it’s not necessarily the mantra of the customer is always right, but do everything with the customer in mind.” – Jason Pace, Software Engineering Manager at Apptentive

102. “Earlier, my priority was only work. I worked like a dog before I got married. After marriage, once you have a baby, time management is difficult. Your responsibilities change, your priorities change. And you have to concentrate on them if you have to work out your life. Your career is just a part of your life. For me, my family is my life. – Kajol

103. “Project management is like juggling three balls – time, cost and quality. Program management is like a troupe of circus performers standing in a circle, each juggling three balls and swapping balls from time to time.”

104. “Performance Management is one of today’s most competent branding/benchmarking tools, but we need to continuously remind ourselves that our performance management system should be in line with our organization’s culture.” – Mahmoud Mansi, Human Capital Consultant, Protiviti.

105. “Rarely are opportunities presented to you in a perfect way. In a nice little box with a yellow bow on top. 'Here, open it, it's perfect. You'll love it.' Opportunities —the good ones—are messy, confusing and hard to recognize. They're risky. They challenge you.” — Susan Wojcicki

106. “If we really want high performance in our organizations, the solution isn’t to entice people with a bigger carrot or threaten them with a longer stick. We need to understand the intrinsic motivation.” – Dan Pink, Author.