Francis X. Sutton Quotes

7 Sourced Quotes

The key definitions for the entrepreneur seem to centre around the concept of responsibility. Responsibility implies individualism. It is not tolerable unless it embraces both credit for success' and blame for failures, and leaves the individual. free to claim or accept the consequences, whatever they may be.

Francis X. Sutton
In contrast to such organizations as governments and universities, the prime criteria of business achievement are relatively definite and tangible. These standards include profitability, percentage control of the market, size of firm, and rate of growth.

Francis X. Sutton
The logical reader can only conclude that had Mr. Du Pont been as devoted to the facts as Mr. Sloan alleges, he would have been paralyzed in indecision, or even more, he certainly have discontinued the production of Chevrolets.

Francis X. Sutton
Extravagance, inefficiency, and waste are inherent in government, because nothing which government does is forced to meet the test of the market. Further, government does not even meet the internal criteria of rationality which the balance sheet and the profit and loss statement impose on every individual business enterprise. The power of government to pay for itself through taxes and deficits, and to force on people things which they do not really want, deprives government activity of any semblance of restraint.

Francis X. Sutton
It is characteristic of executive roles that they are specialized for the handling of situations which call for something more than routine action. When business executives are asked what is the essential content of their roles, they characteristically say, 'We make decisions.' This emphasis on decision-making is symptomatic of a specialized concern of executives with situations in which there is significant uncertainty as to the results of proper courses of action. (One does not make a 'decision' when there is a predictable, correct outcome, as in getting the sum of a column of figures.)

Francis X. Sutton
Businessmen have not shied away from the responsibility implied in Emerson's famous definition of a business as the lengthening shadow of a man. They have readily brushed aside complications and assigned crucial importance to the decisions of the guiding executives.

Francis X. Sutton
There is a strong tendency among businessmen to emphasize that their decisions are based on 'facts' and thus to make favorable outcomes the consequence of perspicacity and 'judgment' rather than good fortune.

Francis X. Sutton