Harold Geneen Quotes

#1. If you keep working you'll last longer. I'd hate to spend the rest of my life trying to outwit an 18-inch fish.

Harold Geneen

#2. Better a good decision quickly than the best decision too late.

Harold Geneen

#3. What you manage in business is people

Harold Geneen

#4. Management must have a purpose, a dedication and that dedication must have an emotional commitment. It must be built in as a vital part of the personality of anyone who truly is a manager.

Harold Geneen

#5. In the business world, everyone is always working at legitimate cross purposes, governed by self interest.

Harold Geneen

#6. Uncertainty will always be part of the taking charge process.

Harold Geneen

#7. Ninety-nine percent of all surprises in business are negative.

Harold Geneen

#8. When I come upon a man who has a gleaming, empty, clear desktop, I am dealing with a fellow who is so far removed from the realities of his business that someone else is running it for him.

Harold Geneen

#9. Business is many things, the least of which is the balance sheet. It is a fluid, ever changing, living thing, sometimes building to great peaks, sometimes falling to crumbled lumps.

Harold Geneen

#10. The professional's grasp of the numbers is a measure of the control he has over the events that the figures represent.

Harold Geneen

#11. In a good meeting there is a momentum that comes from the spontaneous exchange of fresh ideas and produces extraordinary results. That momentum depends on the freedom permitted the participants.

Harold Geneen

#12. Do you want my one-word secret of happiness? It's growth - - mental, financial you name it.

Harold Geneen

#13. The highest art of professional management requires the literal ability to 'smell' a 'real fact' from all others.

Harold Geneen