5 Motivational and Eye-Opening Quotes from Renowned Management Professionals
Sometimes, it takes more than your will to stay motivated. We have all experienced those times
when it gets harder and more challenging to get out of bed and start the day when that morning
alarm clock sounds for work. Fortunately, others have decided to share their insights into what
keeps them going, and you can use their wisdom to get some pep in your step.
It’s time to get out that pen and some post-it notes because we are going to share some eye-opening quotes that you can use for inspiration and even share with your colleagues.
Here are five motivational and helpful pmp quotes from renowned management and business professionals,
along with some tips on how you can apply these ideas to your career.
1. “Operations keeps the lights on, strategy provides a light at the end of the tunnel,
but project management is the train engine that moves the organization forward.” - Joy Gumz,
Director of Project Auditors, LLC.
If you’re struggling with feeling that the work you do matters, this quote is an exceptional
reminder of the part project management
plays in keeping the company running. Gumz highlights
how this skill is the catalyst by which operations and strategy actually work.
Additionally, project management can be applied to any functional department, whether it be
accounting, marketing, or HR. Today, because of how agile companies are expected to be to
respond to customers, business leadership has to be intentional about how they plan to address
their audiences. This activity involves the creation of short and long-term projects.
A Teamwork.com article
cited resource savings, communication improvement, and greater team alignment as reasons for why
project management is growing in value. Ultimately, project management helps bring the pieces
together and provides a path for ideas to form and become actual policies and products.
2. “Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.”
– Peter Drucker, renowned management consultant, and author.
Considered as “the man who invented management”
by Business Week magazine,
Peter Drucker spent most of his career guiding the business community-at-large in changing
how they see and execute management policies. This quote is an excellent reminder of the core
of project management. Everyone can have plans and ideas—this is the first step to creating
a great policy. However, the planning shouldn’t stop here.
These strategies have to be transformed into a process that results in a finished project,
which requires intentionality and hard work. This quote is a great one to share with your
colleagues and teammates as it’s a reminder to them that they need to visualize the steps
needed to reach the goal for every idea they have.
3. “There are three essentials to leadership: humility, clarity, and courage.” - Chan
Master, Fuchan Yuan.
While you may only categorize yourself as a project manager, it’s important to remember how
crucial a role you play in exemplifying leadership. Ultimately, each time you receive a
project description, you are tasked with leading your team to success. While this viewpoint
may feel a bit daunting, it’s important that you understand that leadership doesn’t have
to be a challenging thing. Exceptional leadership is within your grasp.
Chan Master Fuchan Yuan breaks down three of the most pivotal characteristics of being an
exceptional leader: humility, clarity, and courage. Let’s break these down another way:
the openness to accept accountability, the ability to be clear about expectations, and the
bravery to be an example.
If you embody these three characteristics, then you are on your way to being an exceptional
leader that your team can look up to. According to stats from Go Remotely,
79 percent of employees
will quit their jobs due to a lack of appreciation from leaders, so it’s crucial to sharpen
those leadership skills and use them to build up your team members.
4. “None of us is as smart as all of us.” – Ken Blanchard, author and business consultant.
On the other hand, while your leadership will play a huge role in the success of your team,
it’s also true that you need the contributions of the collective to truly win. You must
remember that you aren’t approaching each project alone. You also have the contributions,
intelligence, and skill of your team members to help you. Each one brings a unique perspective
and creativity to the work you all do.
Therefore, make sure you are utilizing the competencies they bring to the table. They may
have a faster way of doing something or may even notice a flaw in your project planning
that you didn’t think about. Additionally, these individuals are deeper in the work than
you are, so they will definitely have some useful insights about the nuts and bolts of your
project and can offer some useful insights..
5. “There are no failures, just experiences and your reactions to them.” - Tom Krause,
Finnish baritone singer.
Yes, you never want to fail a project outrightly. There are likely budget and strategic
implications that can be challenging to overcome. Nevertheless, failure is inevitable.
There will be times when an idea seemed like it was destined to work for you to only result
in failure. But, there is life after failure, and this quote from Tom Krause highlights that
perfectly. Having a mentality that looks at failures like experiences provides a healthy
way to frame these situations. It allows you and your team not to be derailed when things
don’t work out.
You all can instead look at them as ways to improve on the next idea. For many famous people,
failures led to a groundbreaking new concept. So, this quote is a great reminder to look at
unsuccessful projects in a way that pushes you forward.
Seventy percent
of organizations have suffered a project failure in the last 12 months, so again, project
shortcomings are going to happen. Nevertheless, you can turn it around with a positive outlook.
Others Have Been Where You Are
It’s important to realize that other management professionals have been right where you are.
They’ve experienced the ups-and-downs, the failures, and the moments that have propelled them
to success. However, even in those situations, they overcame their problems to thrive, and the
same can happen for you.
Again, it’s normal to feel deflated about what you do. It happens to all of us—even if you have
your “dream job.” Nevertheless, the goal is to remember that what you do is valuable. Your work
as a project manager is essential to the work your company does. So, take a minute to go back
over these quotes and see how they relate to your current career. You may even want to put them
on post-its and take a look at them as a reminder throughout the day that you can move through
the obstacles and struggles you’re facing. You’ve got this!
Sources:
15 Fascinating Project Management Statistics,
https://hive.com/blog/project-management-statistics/#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20research%20by,they%20set%20out%20to%20achieve.
21+ Inspiring Leadership Statistics [2020 Edition],
https://goremotely.net/blog/leadership-statistics/
The Man Who Invented Management,
https://neweconomist.blogs.com/new_economist/2005/11/the_father_of_m.html
Why is Project Management Important,
https://www.teamwork.com/project-management-guide/why-is-project-management-important/