‘What's that?’
‘I think it means shouting at people, “Why haven’t you done it yet?"' (Truck)
Complete collection of Terry Pratchett quotes by subject and cross-referenced
'And there’s something else called progress chasing.’
‘What's that?’ ‘I think it means shouting at people, “Why haven’t you done it yet?"' (Truck)
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'How did you work that out?' said Grimma.
‘The Thing told me,’ said Masklin. ‘It’s something called critical path analysis. It means there’s always something you should have done first. For example, if you want to build a house you need to know how to make bricks, and before you can make bricks you need to know what kind of clay to use. And so on.’ ‘What's clay?’ ‘Don’t know.’ ‘What’re bricks?’ ‘Not sure.’ ‘Well, what’s a house?’ she demanded. ‘Haven’t quite worked it out,’ said Masklin. ‘But anyway, it's all very important.’ (Truck) What the Iron Maiden was to stupid tyrants, the committee was to Lord Vetinari; it was only slightly more expensive, far
less messy, considerably more efficient and, best of all, you had to force people to climb inside the Iron Maiden. (MM) He was extremely good at delegating. But the talent requires people on the other end of the chain to be good at being delegated on to. (MM)
He was a responsible authority, and people could use terms like ‘core values’ at him with impunity. (MM)
There were meetings. There were always meetings. And they were dull, which is part of the reason they were meetings. Dull likes company. (MM)
Vimes had got around to a Clean Desk policy. It was a Clean Floor strategy that eluded him at the moment. (Th)
Vimes maintained three tray: In, Out and Shake It All About; the last one was where he put everything he was too busy,
angry, tired or bewildered to do anything about. (Th) Every organisation needs someone to do those jobs it doesn’t want to do or secretly thinks don’t need doing. (DW)
Ridcully did not like committee business. He certainly did not like any other business. (DW)
Headquarters had even started an Employee of the Month scheme to show how much they cared. That was how much they didn’t care. (GP)
'Whut’s the plan, Rob?’ said one of them.
‘OK, lads, this is what we’ll do. As soon as we see somethin’, we’ll attack it. Right?’ This caused a cheer. ‘Ach, ‘tis a good plan,’ said Daft Wullie. (WFM) One of the hardest lessons of young Sam’s life had been finding out that the people in charge weren’t in charge.
It had been finding out that governments were not, on the whole, staffed by people who had a grip, and that plans were what people make instead of thinking. (NW) 'A good plan isn’t one where someone wins, it’s where nobody thinks they’ve lost.' (AM)
'Some people just become stupid with more authority.' (TOT)
... it is possible, after a while, to develop certain dangerous habits of thought. One is that, while all important enterprises need careful organization, it is the organization that needs organizing, rather than the enterprise. And the other is that tranquility is always a good thing. (TOT)
Ponder had invented a little system he’d called, in the privacy of his head, Lies-to-Wizards. It was for their own good, he told himself. There was no point in telling your bosses everything; they were busy men, they didn’t want explanations. There was no point in burdening them. What they wanted was little stories that they felt they could understand, and then they’d go away and stop worrying. (SODW)
'You know I’ve always wanted a paperless office-'
'Yes, Archchancellor, that’s why you hide it all in the cupboards and throw it out the window at night.' (LC) 'Be what?’
‘Pro-active, I think. It’s a word he’s using a lot.’ ‘What does that mean?’ ‘Well…in favour of activity, I suppose.’ ‘Really? Dangerous. In my experience, inactivity sees you through.' (LC) After all, you couldn’t plan for every eventuality, because that would involve knowing what was going to happen, and if
you knew what was going to happen, you could probably see to it that it didn’t, or at least happened to someone else. So the Patrician never planned. Plans often got in the way. (J) Ridcully assumed that anything people had time to write down couldn’t be important. (IT)
'Round everyone up. My study. Ten minutes,’ said Ridcully. He was a great believer in this approach. A less direct Archchancellor would have wandered around looking for everyone. His policy was to find one person and make their
life difficult until everything happened the way he wanted it to.* *A policy adopted by almost all managers and several notable gods. (IT) Lord Vetinari was sitting in the palace gardens watching the butterflies with an expression of mild annoyance. He found something very slightly offensive about the way they just fluttered around enjoying themselves in an unprofitable way. (IT)
The Patrician was a pragmatist. He’d never tried to fix things that worked. Things that didn’t work, however, got broken. (SM)
And Mustrum Ridcully, the current Archchancellor, liked to wander around the sleepy buildings, nodding to the servants and leaving little notes for his subordinates, usually designed for no other purpose than to make it absolutely clear that he was up and attending to the business of the day while they were still fast asleep. (LL)
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