Business Hierarchy Quotes

Ours is a sort of corporate society with a democratic safety valve.

A lot of companies have teams, but they are not really independent. They still have to get stuff approved by the boss. You have to change how and where decisions are made. If the hierarchy makes the decision, it will be based on politics.

Obscene salaries send the wrong message through a company. The message is that all brilliance emanates from the top; that the worker on the floor of the store or the factory is insignificant.

Corporations, by their nature, do not function as democratic organizations.

You learn a lot about vital corporations through non-vital corporations.

organizations like the church or General Motors promote a man up and up until he reaches a spot which he is obviously incapable of filling, and there they lay him to rest.

The company has always been one of the great mysteries of capitalism: liberals and socialists have never known quite what to think about it. The company is collectivist and co-operative, based on hierarchy, bureaucracy and planning rather than individualism, competition and exchange. Companies appear as little islands of socialism in the market sea.

Today, a skilled manager makes more than the owner. And owners fight each other to get the skilled managers.

We don't have an isolated group [of senior managers] surrounded by servants. Berkshire's headquarters is a tiny little suite. We just came back from Berkshire's board meeting; it had moved up to the board room of the Kiewit company and [it was so large and luxurious that] I felt uncomfortable.

In business terms, if you take over a company and oust its CEO or fire a divisional chief, you run the place. But in institutional terms, as it happens, it doesn't at all work that way.

When the CEO makes a decision, people don't come back on it.