Chester Barnard Quotes

Left to themselves, people will elaborate, not simplify solutions.

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.

The fine art of executive decision consists in not deciding questions that are not now pertinent, in not deciding prematurely, in not making decision that cannot be made effective, and in not making decisions that others should make.

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

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

The responsibility of the executive is (1) to create and maintain a sense of purpose and moral code for the organization; (2) to establish systems of formal and informal communication; and (3) to ensure the willingness of people to cooperate.

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

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

The executive art is nine-tenths inducing those who have authority to use it in taking pertinent action

To try and fail is at least to learn; to fail to try is to suffer the inestimable loss of what might have been.

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

I think we left out one of the really important elements contributing to the dynamism of society, and that is the right to privacy. I mean something more than the right to shave in private. I mean the right to join what I want to join, to do what I want to do, or not to do what I might do without giving anyone a reason, either in advance or afterwards. That does not mean that I am seeking for irresponsibility socially.