Chester Barnard Quotes

• 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

  Inspirational, Failure, Learning

  Chester Irving Barnard (1968). “The Functions of the Executive”, p.26, Harvard University Press

  86 Copy quote

• 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.

  Chester Barnard

  Communication, Responsibility, Organization

  46 Copy quote

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

  Chester Barnard

  Learning, Knowledge, Thinking

  Attributed to Chester Bernard in "Hypothesis-based research" by Richard A. Brand in Journal of Orthopaedic & Sports Physical Therapy 28.2, (pp. 71-73), 1998.

  29 Copy quote

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

  Chester Barnard

  Organization, Community, Individual

  Chester I. Barnard (2004). “Organization and Management: Selected Papers”, p.118, Routledge

  29 Copy quote

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

  Chester Barnard

  Leadership, Long, Morality

  Chester Irving Barnard (1968). “The Functions of the Executive”, p.283, Harvard University Press

  33 Copy quote

• 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

  Organization, Quality, Endurance

  "The Functions of the Executive" by Chester Barnard, Harvard University Press, (p. 282), 1938.

  23 Copy quote

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

  Chester Barnard

  Successful, Organization, Abnormal

  Chester Irving Barnard (1968). “The Functions of the Executive”, p.5, Harvard University Press

  30 Copy quote

• 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.

  Chester Barnard

  Art, Decision, Made

  "Administration" by Albert Lepawsky, (p. 626), 1949.

  20 Copy quote

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

  Chester Barnard

  People, Simplify, Left

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• 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

  Men, Vision, Genius

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

  Chester Barnard

  Art, Business, Use

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• 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.

  Chester Barnard

  Mean, Thinking, Rights

  16 Copy quote

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