Promotion quotes

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Fred_Brooks

Promotions out of Design

“Designers get promoted out of design. Consequently, few designers will work in any depth on as many as 100 projects over a working life.”
  • Source: Brooks Jr., F. P. (2010). The Design of Design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Addison-Wesley. ISBN: 978-0-201-36298-5. Chapter 3, page 24.

Peter_Drucker

Mistakes

“The better a man is, the more mistakes will he make - for the more new things he will try. I would never promote a man into a top level job who had not made mistakes, and big ones at that. Otherwise he is sure to be mediocre.”
  • Source: Peter Drucker, The Practice of Management New York,: Harper, 1st ed. 1954 ; Routledge, 2012, p. 147.

Michael_Faraday

Self-Correction

“Among those points of self-education which take up the form of mental discipline, there is one of great importance, and, moreover, difficult to deal with, because it involves an internal conflict, and equally touches our vanity and our ease. It consists in the tendency to deceive ourselves regarding all we wish for, and the necessity of resistance to these desires. It is impossible for any one who has not been constrained, by the course of his occupation and thoughts, to a habit of continual self-correction, to be aware of the amount of error in relation to judgment arising from this tendency. The force of the temptation which urges us to seek for such evidence and appearances as are in favour of our desires, and to disregard those which oppose them, is wonderfully great. In this respect we are all, more or less, active promoters of error. In place of practising wholesome self-abnegation, we ever make the wish the father to the thought: we receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us; whereas the very reverse is required by every dictate of common sense.”
  • Source: Michael Faraday. Royal Institution Lecture On Mental Education (6 May 1854), as reprinted in Experimental Researches in Chemistry and Physics, by Michael Faraday, 1859, pp 474-475.

Adam_Smith

Three Great Orders

“The whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country... naturally divides itself, it has already been observed, into three parts; the rent of land, the wages of labour, and the profits of stock; and constitutes a revenue to three different orders of people; to those who live by rent, to those who live by wages, and to those who live by profit. These are the three great, original, and constituent orders of every civilised society... The interest of the first of those three great orders, it appears from what has been just now said, is strictly and inseparably connected with the general interest of the society. Whatever either promotes or obstructs the one, necessarily promotes or obstructs the other... The interest of the second order, that of those who live by wages, is as strictly connected with the interest of the society as that of the first... Employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by profit. It is the stock that is employed for the sake of profit which puts into motion the greater part of the useful labour of every society... But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary... The interest of this third order, therefore, has not the same connection with the general interest of the society as that of the other two... The interest of the dealers... is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition... The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.”
  • Source: Adam Smith (1776) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London, England: ‎W. Strahan and T. Cadell. Book I chapter XI.

Invisible Hand

“By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.”
  • Source: Adam Smith (1776) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. London, England: ‎W. Strahan and T. Cadell. Book IV chapter II.

Frederick_Winslow_Taylor

Kindly Interest

“...in order to have any hope of obtaining the initiative of his workmen the manager must give some special incentive to his men beyond that which is given to the average of the trade. This incentive can be given in several different ways, as, for example, the hope of rapid promotion or advancement; higher wages, either in the form of generous piece-work prices or of a premium or bonus of some kind for good and rapid work; shorter hours of labor; better surroundings and working conditions than are ordinarily given, etc., and, above all, this special incentive should be accompanied by that personal consideration for, and friendly contact with, his workmen which comes only from a genuine and kindly interest in the welfare of those under him.”
  • Source: F.W. Taylor, 1911. Principles of Scientific Management. New York and London, Harper & brothers. Chapter 1.

Shoshana_Zuboff

Pay and Promotion

“As operators' skills improved, so did their dissatisfaction with the pay and promotion system.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 412. ISBN:0465032125.