General Manager Quotes

• The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided.

  Casey Stengel

  Motivational, Business, Hate

  78 Copy quote

• Only the general manager can mold the resources, processes, and values that affect innovation , into a coherent capability to develop and launch superior new products and services repeatedly.

  Clayton Christensen

  Innovation, Mold, Process

  Clayton M. Christensen (1999). “Innovation and the General Manager”, Irwin Professional Pub

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• Toughest job in baseball is the general manager. Second toughest is the hitting coach.

  Ken Harrelson

  Baseball, Jobs, Hitting

  4 Copy quote

• My mother's side of the family was in the production side of theatre. My grandfather, Jose Vega, was a general manager for Neil Simon shows on Broadway.

  Yancy Butler

  Mother, Vegas, Grandfather

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• I won eight Stanley Cups as a player, and I've been told it's because I played on great teams. I won two as a general manager, and I've been told it's because I was lucky.

  Serge Savard

  Team, Player, Eight

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• For peace of mind, we need to resign as general manager of the universe.

  Larry Eisenberg

  Inspirational, Motivational, Peace

  62 Copy quote

• My father was a general manager with Hyatt, so we lived in the hotel so he would be close by if there were any problems. My mum was always adamant about us not abusing it. So I still had to clean my room. Housekeeping would never come and do it.

  Dianna Agron

  Father, Rooms, Would Be

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• Being general manager is like being the de facto owner. It's like wearing the crown of 'Restaurant Man' without being 'Restaurant Man.' You're trying to run the business, but you're running the ranch without riding the big horse.

  Joe Bastianich

  Running, Horse, Men

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• It is the nature of being the general manager of a baseball team that you have to remain on familiar terms with people you are continually trying to screw.

  Michael Lewis

  Baseball, Team, People

  Michael Lewis (2004). “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game”, p.105, W. W. Norton & Company

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• The general manager is kind of like the step into darkness when you reach the top of the league. As GM, you're responsible for everything, including the maitre d's and the sommeliers - all these people who have their own agendas. But you probably make less than the maitre d' and have a lot more work and a lot more headaches.

  Joe Bastianich

  People, League, Darkness

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• I didn't think it would be possible, but it appears Isiah Thomas is a worse general manager than coach.

  Mark Boyle

  Thinking, Would Be, Coaches

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• It's just a natural progression. You're a player, then you're a coach, then you're general manager for the team, and then the next logical step for me and you would be [to become] team owner.

  Zakk Wylde

  Team, Player, Would Be

  Source: www.guitarmessenger.com

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• My Dad sold automobiles as a general manager of a General Motors automobile dealership. He was a job creator. Everyone of those cars he sold he created a job for somebody on the assembly line.

  Joe Biden

  Jobs, Dad, Car

  Interview with Rachel Maddow, www.msnbc.com. February 18, 2016.

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• One thing I learned in the NBA is that the No. 1 job of a general manager is to keep his job. They are only 30 positions where you make millions and hang around with basketball players all day.

  Mark Cuban

  Basketball, Jobs, Player

  "Online Extra: Mark Cuban: Watch Out for 'Ultrabroadband'". Interview with Peter Elstrom, www.bloomberg.com. August 25, 2003.

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• Some teams have a nucleus to build around. The Falcons barely have an embryo. So if you see suspicious looking wires running from the locker room to Dimitroff's office, and the general manager pushes down on the plunger as early as today, don't feel the need to cover your eyes. You've already seen the worst.

  Jeff Schultz

  Running, Team, Eye

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• It's pretty simple, the way I look at it. I became a Hall of Famer here (in New York), with my numbers here and what I've done here, and hopefully three-hundred will be another big part of that. When (former Red Sox general manager Dan) Duquette said that I was done, if I'd have taken his advice and went home, I wouldn't have been a Hall of Famer. So it's a no-brainer. It's definitely pretty easy. Reggie (Jackson) spent five years here, and this will be five for me.

  Roger Clemens

  New York, Taken, Home

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• I do interview senior candidates at the home office or many of our hotel or restaurant General Manager candidates. My two favorite questions are "Tell me about a failure in your career, what you learned from it, and how you've leveraged this lesson" and "All of us are misperceived at one time or another. What's the most common way you're misperceived in the workplace and why?" Both of these questions require a certain amount of self-awareness and a willingness to not give pat, normal answers that we offer experience in interviews.

  Chip Conley

  Senior, Home, Self

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• I never look at salaries. I have no aspirations of being a general manager or anything like that, I want to coach. For me there is no dollar signs on the towels, no dollar signs on their jerseys, I will make the decisions based on who is going to make us win. For me, that is my only priority.

  Bob Hartley

  Winning, Priorities, Decision

  Source: flamesnation.ca

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• It's unfortunate when an athlete's talent comes with so little forethought or leadership [...] The Falcons need to start over. If next year's team ends up being young and hungry but fairly average, the last thing you want as a general manager or coach is to have a blowhard cornerback whining about his contract leading the charge, no matter how good he is.

  Jeff Schultz

  Team, Athlete, Average

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• A lot of people don't trust the pitch. There's this kind of reputation it has for being untrustworthy and fickle and capricious and everything else, and those are words that big league managers and general managers and organizations aren't too fond of.

  R.A. Dickey

  Organization, People, League

  "Master of the Knuckleball". Interview with Jeremy Stahl, www.slate.com. October 29,2012.

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• There's never a benefit to bragging too much about a deal because the only sure thing is that I'm probably going to be dealing with that same general manager or that same person over and over again.

  Leigh Steinberg

  Benefits, Too Much, Bragging

  Source: bleacherreport.com

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• The chance to be a general manager in major-league baseball and for a franchise as storied as this one, probably as storied as the Giants, is great.

  Ned Colletti

  Baseball, League, Giants

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• One of the strong principles that I believe in is that you're always learning, whether you're a commissioner, a current general manager, a president or an owner, or somebody that's trying to become a general manger or a coach in the NFL.

  Roger Goodell

  Strong, Believe, Nfl

  "Roger Goodell talks crown-of-the-helmet rule, Tim Tebow, more". Interview with Steve Wyche, www.nfl.com. May 9, 2013.

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• I could imagine God saying to a lot of us, "Hey, I'm God, and you're not. You're not the general manager of the universe." And the greatest stress reliever is take God seriously, but don't take yourself seriously.

  Rick Warren

  Stress, Hey, Imagine

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• The ultimate freedom for creative groups is the freedom to experiment with new ideas. Some skeptics insist that innovation is expensive. In the long run, innovation is cheap. Mediocrity is expensive—and autonomy can be the antidote.”   TOM KELLEY General Manager, IDEO

  Daniel H. Pink

  Running, Business, Ideas

  Daniel H. Pink (2010). “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”, p.90, Canongate Books

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