The Ultimate Book of Business Thinking

"Modern organizations want executive education to do more than fill managers' heads. They want it to transform the way they work."

"As a business tool, the Boston matrix had a significant and long-term impact. It provided a useful way of looking at the world."

"The usefulness of the decision making models remain a leap of faith."

"Despite its popularity and longevity, it would be wrong to view the four Ps as anything other than a catchy, and fairly accurate, aide memoire."

"Game theory is based on the premise that no matter what the game, no matter what the circumstances, there is a strategy that will enable you to succeed."

"The grid helps people who are not conversant in psychology to see themselves and those they work with more clearly, to understand their interactions, and identify the sources of resistance and conflicts."

"When low-level needs are satisfied, individuals are no longer motivated by them. As each level of needs is met, individuals progress to higher-level motivators."

"Porter's generic strategies offered a rational and straightforward method of companies extricating themselves from strategic confusion. It was, however, short-lived."

"The seven S framework belongs to an era that is gone. The simple truths it uncovered are no longer considered worthy of our attention. But as a milestone in the evolution of management theory, it still has much to teach."

"The shamrock organization describes a type of organizational structure with three parts?or leaves?"a form of organization based around a core of essential executives and workers supported by outside contractors and part-time help.""

"It is the point at which the organization must alter the path it is on?adapting itself to the new situation?or it risks going into decline."

"The common complaint against McGregor's theories X and Y is that they are mutually exclusive, two incompatible ends of a spectrum. To counter this, before he died in 1964, McGregor was developing theory Z."