While [bureaucratic] solutions have been frequently criticized by those within and without the organization, no alternative way has been found to cope with the problem of organizing large numbers of people to produce goods and services efficiently.

Organization theory...has been altogether too accommodating to organizations and their power.

The 'language theory' is inadequate as a description of the nature of mathematics.

Certainly, we always need to search for new ideas and solutions — invention and discovery move humankind forward — but the biggest problems facing organizations today stem not from a dearth of new management ideas (we’re inundated with them), but primarily from a lack of understanding the basic fundamentals and, most problematic, a failure to consistently apply those fundamentals

Our system is not fit for purpose. It's inadequate in terms of its scope, it's inadequate in terms of its information technology, leadership, management systems and processes.

The major problems of organization can perhaps best be studied in dynamic terms, i.e., as they arise and change with the evolution of the company. In this dynamic setting the causes and nature of organization problems can be recognized most easily. Each major problem can be analyzed at the stage of the company's growth when it typically arises, when there are few complications and the organizational problem is centered about just one factor or change in the company's mode of operation. Just as it is easier to study the workings of democracy as they arise in one of the small towns of New England rather than in the United States as a whole, so it appears to be desirable, in dealing with a subject of such scope as organization, to isolate and study the major problems individually.

I think that the key problem we face is unproductive ways of doing things. I don't think it’s the technical problem.

[Formal structures of formal organizations] never succeed in conquering the non-rational dimensions of organizational behavior.

However a systems problem is solved—by a planner, scientist, politician, antiplanner, or whomever—the solution is wrong, even dangerously wrong. There is bound to be deception in any approach to the system.

Most large mistakes in organizational design come from putting the individual ambitions of the people at the top of the organization ahead of the communication paths for the people at the bottom of the organization.

A horrifying amount of "business engineering" is done with the wrong strategic vision. A horrifying amount of IT development is done with the wrong business design.

A significant idea of organization cannot be obtained in a world in which everything is necessary and nothing is contingent'

For crude classifications and false generalisations are the curse of all organised human life.

Most striking feature... is the author’s failure to understand the elementary mechanics of the competitive economic organization.