Chester Barnard Quotes

14 Sourced Quotes

Organizations endure, however, in proportion to the breadth of the morality by which they are governed. Thus the endurance of organization depends upon the quality of leadership; and that quality derives from the breadth of the morality upon which it rests.

Chester Barnard
At a crisis in my youth he taught me the wisdom of choice: To try and fail is at least to learn; to fail to try is to suffer the inestimable loss of what might have been.

Chester Barnard
Planning is one of the many catchwords whose present popularity is roughly proportionate to the obscurity of its definition.

Chester Barnard
The making of decisions, as everyone knows from personal experience, is a burdensome task. Offsetting the exhilaration that may result from correct and successful decision and the relief that follows the termination of a struggle to determine issues is the depression that comes from failure, or error of decision, and the frustration which ensues from uncertainty.

Chester Barnard
A formal and orderly conception of the whole is rarely present, perhaps even rarely possible, except to a few men of exceptional genius.

Chester Barnard
It is what we think we know that keeps us from learning.

Chester Barnard
Prestige, competitive reputation, social philosophy, social standing, philanthropic interests, combativeness, love of intrigue, dislike of friction, technical interest, Napoleonic dreams, love of accomplishing useful things, desire for regard of employees, love of publicity, fear of publicity – a long catalogue of non-economic motives actually condition the management of business, and nothing but the balance sheet keeps these non-economic motives from running wild. Yet without all these incentives, I think most business would be a lifeless failure.

Chester Barnard
When a condition of honesty and sincerity is recognized to exist, errors of judgment, defects of ability, are sympathetically endured. They are expected. Employees don't ascribe infallibility to leaders or management. What does disturb them is insincerity and the appearance of insincerity when the facts are not in their possession.

Chester Barnard
Successful cooperation in or by formal organizations is the abnormal, not the normal, condition.

Chester Barnard
An organization can secure the efforts necessary to its existence, then, either by the objective inducements it provides or by changing states of mind. It seems to me improbable that any organization can exist as a practical matter which does not employ both methods in combination. In some organizations the emphasis is on the offering of objective incentives — this is true of most industrial organizations. In others the preponderance is on the state of mind — this is true of most patriotic and religious organizations.

Chester Barnard
Effectiveness relates to the accomplishment of the cooperative purpose which is social and non-personal in character. Efficiency relates to the satisfaction of individual motives and is personal in character.

Chester Barnard
The inculcation of belief in the real existence of a common purpose is an essential executive function.

Chester Barnard
In a community all acts of individuals and of organizations are directly or indirectly interconnected and interdependent

Chester Barnard
A low morality will not sustain leadership long, its influence quickly vanishes, it cannot produce its own succession.

Chester Barnard