Corporate Culture Quotes
Top 40 Corporate Culture Quotes
No 1 (Best quote!)
Beliefs must always come before policies, practices and goals.
- Thomas Watson Jnr, boss of IBM,
pictured right, in A Business and Its
Beliefs (1963).
No 2
Your spirit is the most powerful thing of all.
- Herb Kelleher (1931- ), founder of Southwest
Airlines, pictured right.
No 3
Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless.
- Soichiro Honda (1906-91), co-founder of
Honda, pictured right.
No 4
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-65) American
president, pictured right (repeating what Jesus said)
No 5
The enterprise is a community of human beings. Its performance is the performance of human beings. And a human
community must be founded on common beliefs, must symbolize its cohesion in common principles.
Peter Drucker, pictured right, in The Practice of Management (1954)
No 6
Our strength is our unity of
purpose
- Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), pictured right, American
president.
No 7
Great companies make meaning.
- Richard Pascale, pictured right. and Anthony
Athos, pictured right below, in The Art of Japanese Management (1982).
No 8
Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values,
- the Dalai Lama (1935-), Tibetan leader, pictured
right.
Herb Kelleher (1931-), American boss of
Southwest Airlines 1982-2001, pictured right agrees:
You can change your practices, not your principles.
No 9
Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value
- the four key values of McDonald's created by its founder, Ray
Kroc, pictured right.
No 10
There is not one ‘right’ or ‘best’ culture for an organization – only the appropriate culture for a business
environment.
- Rob Goffee, pictured right. and Gareth Jones, pictured right below, in The Character of a
Corporation (1998), pictured right.
No 11
The ones I’m talking about belong to it.
- William H. Whyte, pictured right. (talking about what he called the “organization man”) in
his book The Organization Man (1956)
No 12
The best firms link their purposes and ways of realizing them to human values as well as to economic measures
like profit and efficiency
- Richard Pascale, pictured right above, and Anthony
Athos, pictured right, in The Art of Japanese Management (1982)
No 13
Much of the trouble in organizations comes from the attempt to go on doing things as they used to be done, from
a reluctance to change the culture when it needs to be changed.
- Charles Handy, pictured right, in The Gods of Management (1985)
No 14
Cultures can be very stable over time, but they are never static... New challenges can lead to the creation of
new ways of doing things.
- James Heskett, pictured right, and John Kotter, pictured right below, in Corporate Culture and Performance (1992)
No 15
Culture is the way in which a group of people solves problems and reconciles dilemmas.
- Fons Trompenaars, pictured
right, and Charles Hampden-Turner,
pictured right below, in Riding the Waves of Culture (2nd edition, 1997).
No 16
Love, friendship, respect do not unite people as much as common hatred for something.
- Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian writer, pictured right.
No 17
If you look at our company culture, we’ve always had a customer obsession, and we’ve always been pioneering.
Jeff Bezos (1964- ), founder of
Amazon, pictured
right.
No 18
The way we do things around here [definition of corporate culture].
- Marvin Bower, boss of the American management consultants, McKinsey 1950-67, pictured
right.
No 19
We must, indeed, hang together, or assuredly, we shall all hang separately
(at the signing of the American Declaration of
Independence,1776).
- Benjamin
Franklin (1706-90) American politician, and inventor, pictured right.
No 20
Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves; when that right is pre-empted it is called
brain-washing.
- Germaine Greer (1939- ), Australian feminist, pictured right.
No 21
Nothing kills your company’s culture like layoffs.
- Herb Kelleher (1931- ), founder of Southwest
Airlines, pictured right.
No 22
I chose four key words as my guiding principles: Inspire, Innovate, Ignite, Integrity.
- Jo Malone, English fragrance entrepreneur, pictured right.
No 23
Don't fight a battle,if you don't gain anything by winning.
- Erwin Rommel (1891-1945), German World War Two general, pictured right.
No 24
All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited intelligence
among those that it is addressed to.
- Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), pictured right,
German dictator.
No 25
I have no point of view! Supposing the company thinks...I think so too!
- Frank Loesser (1910-69), pictured right, in the 1961 song Company Way.
No 26
Strong values underpin successful businesses.
- Terry Leahy (1956-), chief executive of the
British supermarket chain, Tesco, 1997-2011, pictured right.
No 27
Moderation in principle is always a vice,
- Thomas (Tom)
Paine (1737-1809), English philosopher, pictured right.
No 28
People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find
attractive.
- Blaise Pascal (1623-62),
French mathematician, physicist and philosopher, pictured right.
No 29
At the core of all well founded belief lies belief that is unfounded.
- Ludwig
Wittgenstein (1889-1951), Austrian-born British philosopher, pictured right.
No 30
Tolerance is the first principle of community.
- Helen Keller (1880-1968), American
campaigner for the disabled, pictured right.
No 31
You become what you believe.
Oprah Winfrey (1954-), African
American chat show host, pictured right.
No 32
Obedience to a code of conduct based upon the teaching of the wise mind is the only foundation of success.
- John Ruskin (1819-1900), English artist
and philosopher, pictured right.
No 33
Isn’t everybody a part of everybody else?,
- Edie Doyle (Eva Marie Saint in the 1954 film, On the Waterfront), pictured right above).
No 34
The crucial variable is not the content of a company’s ideology, but how deeply it believes its ideology and how
consistently it lives, breathes, and expresses it in all that it does.
- Jim Collins, pictured right above, and Jerry
Porras, pictured right below, Built
to Last (1994).
No 35
Culture isn’t just one aspect of the game – it is the game.
- Lou Gerstner, pictured right, Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance (2002).
No 36
Inappropriate cultures lead to unhappiness and inefficiency.
- Charles Handy, pictured right. The Gods of Management (1985).
No 37
The excellent companies live their commitment to people.
- Tom Peters, pictured right below, and Robert Waterman, pictured right, In Search of
Excellence (1982)
No 38
There are two forces that unite men – fear and interest.
- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), French
leader, pictured right.
No 39
Culture is activity of thought and receptiveness to beauty and humane feeling.
- Alfred North Whitehead (1861- 1947), English philosopher, pictured right.
No 40
United we stand, divided we fall.
- Patrick Henry (1736-99), American
politician, pictured right.
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