10 Quotes by Chester Barnard

To try and fail is at least to learn; to fail to try is to suffer the inestimable loss of what might have been.

In a community all acts of individuals and of organizations are directly or indirectly interconnected and interdependent.

A formal and orderly conception of the whole is rarely present, perhaps even rarely possible, except to a few men of exceptional genius.

It is what we think we know that keeps us from learning.

Organizations endure, however, in proportion to the breadth of the morality by which they are governed. Thus the endurance of organization depends upon the quality of leadership; and that quality derives from the breadth of the morality upon which it rests.

The fine art of executive decision consists in not deciding questions that are not now pertinent, in not deciding prematurely, in not making decisions that cannot be made effective, and in not making decisions that others should make.

Successful cooperation in or by formal organizations is the abnormal, not the normal, condition.

A low morality will not sustain leadership long, its influence quickly vanishes, it cannot produce its own succession.

The executive art is nine-tenths inducing those who have authority to use it in taking pertinent action.