Businesspeople From France

"Are there principles of administration? Nobody doubts it. What do they consist of? That is what I propose to discuss today. The subjects of recruitment, organization and direction of personnel will form the subject of the second part of this study."

"Every employee in an undertaking — workman, foreman, shop manager, head of division, head of department, manager, and if it is a state enterprise the series extends to the minister or head of a state department — takes a larger or smaller share in the work of administration, and has, therefore, to use and display his administrative faculties. By administrative knowledge we mean planning, organization, command, coordination, and control: it can be elementary for the workman, but must be very wide in the case of employees of high rank, especially managers of big concerns. Everyone has some need of administrative knowledge."

"The. manager must never be lacking in knowledge of the special profession which is characteristic of the undertaking: the technical profession in industry, commercial in commerce, political in the State, military in the Army, religious in the Church, medical in the hospital, teaching in the school, etc. The technical function has long been given the degree of importance which is its due, and of which we must not deprive it, but the technical function by itself cannot endure the successful running of a business; it needs the help of the other essential functions and particularly of that of administration. This fact is so important from the point of view of the organization and management of a business that I do not mind how often I repeat it in order that it may be fully realized."

"An examination of the characteristics required by the employees and heads of undertakings of every kind leads to the same conclusions as the foregoing study, which was confined largely to industrial concerns. In the home and in affairs of State, the need for administrative ability is proportional to the importance of the undertaking. Like every other undertaking, the home requires administration, that is to say planning, organization, command, coordination and control. Nothing but a theory of administration, which can be taught and then discussed by everybody, can put an end to the general uncertainty as to proper methods, which exists in the isolation of our households. There is therefore a universal need for a knowledge of administration."

"Management plays a very important part in the government of undertakings: of all undertakings, large or small, industrial, commercial, political, religious or other. I intend to set forth my ideas here on the way in which that part should be played."

"This code is indispensable. Be it a case of commerce, industry, politics, religion, war or philanthropy in every concern there is a management function to be performed and for its performance there must be principles, that is to say acknowledged truths regarded as proven on which to rely."

"[Planning] means both to assess the future and make provision for it."

"The manner in which the subordinates do their work has incontestably a great effect upon the ultimate result, but the operation of management has much greater effect."

"The meaning that I have given to the word administration and which has been generally adopted, broadens considerably the field of administrative science. It embraces not only the public service but enterprises of every size and description, of every form and every purpose. All undertakings require planning, organization, command, co-ordination and control, and in order to function properly, all must observe the same general principles. We are no longer confronted with several administrative sciences but with one alone, which can be applied equally well to public and to private affairs and whose principal elements are today summarized in what we term the Administrative Theory."

"One motive for Henri Fayol's vigorous defense of administration as a subject for serious scientific study was the fact that he saw France, in the period between the and World War I, disintegrating for lack of administrative ability and managerial efficiency. Hoping to make sounder administrative practices available to French civil and military agencies, he fostered the "Center of Studies in Administration" in Paris, as a kind of French Public Administration Clearing House. Fayol was one of the principal consultants to the French government during the crisis period of World War I and a leading participant in the International Congress of Administrative Sciences. Despite his conservative views about French politics, he was in complete agreement on questions of governmental organization with the rising French socialist of those days, Leon Blum, who, as Prime Minister, was later to try out some of the administrative ideas they both held in common. This is... but one of several such instances of agreement on administrative matters among political opposites, an instance which helps to establish the view Fayol insisted upon, namely, that administration is a subject of universal importance."

"The contribution of Henri Fayol is well known to even the beginning student of management. Most principles of management textbooks acknowledge Fayol as the father of the first theory of administration ans his 14 principles as providing a framework for the process of thought."

"Henri Fayol (1949) is generally considered as the father of planning. As early as 1917, he led a nationally owned French mining concern from the brink of bankruptcy to international dominance. This was clearly the result of his development of a specific system. This system involved forecasts from various levels and persons within the organization. Managers from each level submitted their best estimates of the coming years activity and, based on this information, the Chief Executive Officer would make up a one to five year plan. Financial evaluations and control of departments were then based upon these projections. Based on the business practices and policies of 1917, this was a radical and unsettling approach. Prior to Fayol’s innovation, the charisma and entrepreneurial abilities of the firm’s leadership was believed to be the major factor leading to its success. As more firms became corporations and the size of business entities continued to grow, Fayol’s planning approach became widely accepted. General Motors adopted this approach (during the 1930s and 1940s and provided an excellent example of this (Sloane, 1963) in the United States."

"He wrote a monograph in French in 1916, entitled "General and Industrial Administration". Until this book was translated into English in 1929, little was known about him by the western world"

"Never, O never have I abused a woman. Hurting a woman would be like kicking my own mother's tummy."

"He is the child of parents who forbade him nothing. [...] As a result he had a relationship with freedom that was almost unknown among his generation in France."

"The monstre sacré (Depardieu) indulged in many things during the shoot ... Taking advantage of the privacy of a carriage. Slipping his big paw under my petticoats to supposedly get a better feel of me. Me, not letting him get to me."

"The stage is like a cage of light. People are no longer afraid of you - they are the ones out there in the dark, watching."

"124 kilos, and right now I'm not erect, erect is 126. I've got a beam in my pants."

"Pretty little darling. I'm in great shape, I slept a lot. If you only knew the dreams I've had, I know you like the back of my hand [...] You’re going to take a nice shower and think of me."

"Si jeunesse savoit; si viellesse pouvoit."

"One product is always ultimately bought with another, even when paid for in the first instance with money."

"When war becomes a trade, it benefits, like all other trades, from the division of labour."

"It is doubtless very desirable, that private persons should have a correct knowledge of their personal interests; but it must be infinitely more so, that governments should possess that knowledge."

"The government has, in all countries, a vast influence, in determining the character of the national consumption; not only because it absolutely directs the consumption of the state itself, but because a great proportion of the consumption of individuals is gained by its will and example."

"The difficulty lies, not in finding a producer, but in finding a consumer."

"A nation or an individual, will do wisely to direct consumption chiefly to those articles, that are longest time in wearing out, and the most frequently in use."

"The luxury of ostentation affords a much less substantial and solid gratification, than the luxury of comfort, if I may be allowed the expression."

"In times of political confusion, and under an arbitrary government, many will prefer to keep their capital inactive, concealed, and unproductive, either of profit or gratification, rather than run the risk of its display. This latter evil is never felt under a good government."

"Opulent, civilized, and industrious nations, are greater consumers than poor ones, because they are infinitely greater producers."

"All travellers agree that protestant are both richer and more populous than catholic countries;and the reason is, because the habits of the former are more conducive to production."

"The most effectual encouragement to population is, the activity of industry, and the consequent multiplication of the national products."

"It is a melancholy but an undoubted fact, that, even in the most thriving countries, part of the population annually dies of mere want. Not that all who perish from want absolutely die of hunger; though this calamity is of more frequent occurrence than is generally supposed."

"Capital can seldom be made productive, without undergoing several changes both of form and of place, the risk of which is always more or less alarming to persons unaccustomed to the operations of industry; whereas, on the contrary, landed property produces without any change of either quality or position."

"The sea and wind can at the same time convey my neighbour's vessel and my own."

"capital cannot be more beneficially employed, then in strengthening and aiding the productive powers of nature."

"The theory of interest was wrapped in utter obscurity, until Hume and Smith dispelled the vapor."

"But what must be the character of that policy, which aims at national prosperity through the impoverishment of a large proportion of the home producers, with a view to supply foreigners at a cheaper rate, and give them all the benifet of the national privation and self denial?"

"Whence it is evident that the remedy must be adapted to the particular cause of the mischief; consequently, the cause must be ascertained, before the remedy is devised."

"A much larger value is consumed in lettuces than in pineapples, throughout Europe at large; and the superb shawls of Cachemere are, in France, a very poor object in trade, in comparison with the plain cotton goods of Rouen."

"Demand and supply are the opposite extremes of the beam, whence depend the scales of dearness and cheapness; the price is the point of equilibrium, where the momentum of the one ceases, and that of the other begins."

"Valuation is vague and arbitrary, when there is no assurance that it will be generally acquiesced in by others."

"Law has been unjustly charged with the whole blame of the calamities resulting from the scheme that bears his name."

"Wherefore it is impossible to succeed in comparing wealth of different eras or different nations. This, in political economy, like squaring the circle in mathematics, is impracticable, for want of a common mean or measure to go by."

"And let no government imagine, that, to strip them of the power of defrauding their subjects, is to deprive them of a valuable privilege. A system of swindling can never be long lived, and must infallibly in the end produce much more loss than profit."

"At Newfoundland, it is said, that dried cod performs the office of money,"

"What would people think of a tradesman, that was to give a ball in his shop, hire performers, and hand refreshments about, with a view to benefit his business?"

"The ancients, by their system of colonization, made themselves friends all over the known world; the moderns have sought to make subjects, and therefore have made enemies."

"What is the motive which operates in every man's breast to counteract the impulse towards the gratification of his wants and appetites?"

"Nothing is more dangerous in practice, than an obstinate, unbending adherence to a system, particularly in its application to the wants and errors of mankind."

"Some writers maintain arithmetic to be only the only sure guide in political economy; for my part, I see so many detestable systems built upon arithmetical statements, that I am rather inclined to regard that science as the instrument of national calamity."