John Hoover Quotes

105 Sourced Quotes

A well-designed and engineered leadership system ties everyone in your organization to the truth of the past, the irreplaceability of the moment, and the promise of the future. Without these things, much... will be wasted in an effort that might take you someplace you had no intention of going, at a price you had no intention of paying, and with more unintended than intended consequences.

John Hoover
Even the most mechanical organizations can design and deploy a people-centered culture, even if it happens one department at a time and takes a flying squirrel to champion the change.

John Hoover
Most executives bring in a consultant or a new training program for course correction after they've steered the ship into an iceberg.

John Hoover
One of the things [good] ringleaders encourage is the uncensored free-flow of information and ideas, both within their circles and within the biggest circle of all, the one drawn around the entire organization.

John Hoover
Deciding not to intentionally do things to shape your environment... will help bring about the environment you don't want. Inaction around the office is innocuous.

John Hoover
Efficiency, productivity, and performance should always be priorities, through good times and bad.

John Hoover
I never realized what it was really like to work for an idiot until I started working for myself.

John Hoover
Why must intelligent people suffer from worry, fear, and anxiety while idiots sleep well at night?

John Hoover
Am I an idiot?... Answer the questions honestly.... When I receive orders to cut my staff I... Cut the people who challenge me the most to think...

John Hoover
You are ultimately your own boss, even if you report to someone else.

John Hoover
Active idiots carry their dysfunction into positions of leadership and remain oblivious to the havoc they wreak.... Recovering idiots are not perfect.... But we're working on it.

John Hoover
Bullwinkle believed that business was a mechanized process and that people were incidental to that process—a disposable yet necessary annoyance to the enterprise.... Bullwinkle managed to aggravate, antagonize, and alienate everyone he dealt with, inside and outside the organization.

John Hoover
People who habitually speak positively of others tend to do so in all circumstances. Those who tend to criticize others in your presence and recruit you to agree with their cutting remarks will probably criticize you when you are out of the room.

John Hoover
People in organizations get ticked and become increasingly cynical every time a new change initiative, continuous process improvement, leadership development program, customer service seminar, internal and/or external communication initiative is brought in; and nothing improves.

John Hoover
After studying idiot bosses for more than two decades, I finally understand why females in certain species eat their young.

John Hoover
If escaping your paranoid boss is not... easy... Keep your activities in plain site... copy your Paranoid Boss on everything... Spend more time with him... Share the knowledge... Share secrets... some of your inner thoughts, within reason...

John Hoover
If compensation is merely tied to the organizational money chart, the real contributions of many in the organization are not being recognized or rewarded. Such neglect kills enthusiasm and effort.

John Hoover
As a leader, you can't afford to be afraid of the emotional purpose in your life or in the lives of those in your area of authority.

John Hoover
Traditional organizational charts tend to institutionalize inefficiency, and misalignment of natural talents to job descriptions.

John Hoover
Note what types of behavior they approve of and start behaving accordingly.

John Hoover
Good Bosses treat those with more power the same way they treat those with less power.

John Hoover
Despite our most innocent and best intentions as leaders, the havoc we often wreak can nevertheless be enormous in terms of wasted time, money, and resources, and, more important, in alienation and disenfranchisement of the most valuable blessing of all: our people.

John Hoover
Conversation sets the stage for the commitment and the covenant...

John Hoover
To Paranoid Bosses, everything and everybody is out to get them, including you.

John Hoover
Clinging to unrealistic expectations, we can become our own worst enemies.

John Hoover
There are no Idiot Police. We're on our own to deal with the idiots among us.

John Hoover
Going through channels means seeking permission from those above you.... Imagine how much... distortion there will be if the information is screened each time based on each person's political agenda.

John Hoover
As the leader, you must pay close attention to results and effort.

John Hoover
The cost of downsizing, re-sizing, or right-sizing eclipses what it would have cost to unleash the pent up leadership already inside the organization.

John Hoover
Have you ever heard anyone come right out and suggest, Let's dump all those older men and women who know our business, our products, our customers, and the marketplace inside and out. We can replace them with kids who don't know squat, but will work twice the hours at half the pay.... the expense of training new-hires, and the productivity ramp up will eventually deflate earnings...

John Hoover