More Management Aphorisms

Here are a few more of the sayings, quips and rules of thumb I’ve collected over my years as a manager, consultant and compulsive reader:

“When all you've got in your toolbox is a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail” – a commentary on letting your frustrations get the better of you, as well as the more common warning against relying on a single core competency. I don't care how good you are at your specialty; don't allow that expertise to blind you to other possibilities that might be available. And no matter how much you might want to just hammer away at a problem (e.g. keep smashing it with the hammer), no amount of brute force will ever replace a proper analysis of the situation.

“Just because something doesn't do what you expected it to do, that doesn't mean it's useless” – often attributed to Thomas Edison, who made a number of his famous discoveries by accident. In a management context, it's important not to lose sight of what you have actually accomplished, even if you have not achieved the results you were expecting. You, too, might discover something of value that was not originally on the agenda, but you won't if you automatically discard anything other than the results you were expecting. This aphorism also serves as a warning against taking action (in this case discarding and/or starting over) before you completely understand the situation.

“Once the pin has been pulled, Mr. Grenade is no longer our friend” – actually more of an Internet joke than an aphorism, but I included it because I think it's funny. It’s still a serious warning that there are certain actions that will change our current operating paradigm as suddenly (and completely) as a nearby grenade blast would, and that some of them may be relatively innocuous compared to the outcomes they create.

“The three most useless things to a pilot are the runway behind him, the sky above him, and whatever happened a tenth of a second ago” – until somebody invents a practical time machine, it really doesn't matter how many resources you've squandered (the runway), how much potential/market you have yet to tap (the sky), or how badly you've screwed things up to this point (whatever it was that happened). You have got to focus on the resources you still have and what you can still do to salvage or rectify the situation. Semantically, of course, it has a meaning similar to "don't cry over spilled milk," but I've always felt this one lends itself better to the manager's role.

“Anybody who uses the expression ‘easy as taking candy from a baby’ has never actually TRIED taking candy from a baby” – a reminder that just because everybody thinks something is easy does not mean that it actually is. In fact, one of the worst management issues I’ve encountered in my travels are “managers” who believe that anything they don’t understand must be easy – or must not be important. Let’s all try not to be that manager…

“There is a time for quiet, reasoned discourse; for give and take; for negotiation; for the settling of conflicts in a civilized fashion by reasonable adults. There is also a time for kicking ass and taking names. And the truly successful leader is usually the one who knows when to do which” – pretty much self-explanatory, although you’d be surprised at the number of people who have never heard it before. Many people believe that conflict is bad, and should be avoided at all costs, particularly in business settings, where time spent fighting with each other is time you can’t spend running your business. And to some extent this may be true; but the fact remains that sometimes you’ve just got to stand up for yourself, your people, your agenda, or whatever else some obstructionist bastard is trying to attack…