Alfred P. Sloan

United States
23 May 1875 // 17 Feb 1966
Executive

Quotes

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There are so many people involved and it requires such a tremendous effort to put something into effect that a new idea is likely to be considered insignificant in comparison with the effort that it takes to put it across.

Quoted in The Bigness Complex (1986)
We know every dollar added to the cost means more than one dollar added to the consumer price. We know a higher consumer price means fewer consumer sales.

'The Most Important Things I Learned About Management,' System (1924)
The rapidity of technological change makes the search for facts a permanently necessary feature.

My Years with General Motors (1964)
There has to be this pioneer, the individual who has the courage, the ambition to overcome the obstacles that always develop when one tries to do something worthwhile, especially when it is new and different.
Decentralization or not, an industrial corporation is not the mildest form of organization...! never minimized the administrative power of the chief executive.

My Years with General Motors (1964)
Everything possible starts in the organization from the bottom.

'The Most Important Things I Learned About Management,' System (1924)
It is impossible to get the measure of what an individual can accomplish unless the responsibility is given him.

'Modern Ideas of the Big Business World,' Work (1926)
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