The Little Book of Big Management Wisdom

QUOTATION 5

ANDREW CARNEGIE ON TAKING CARE OF THE PENNIES

Use this to remind you of the need to control costs.

The old saying, ‘Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves’, was reformulated by the great Scottish American businessman Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) for use by managers:

Watch the costs and the profits will take care of themselves.

Andrew Carnegie

Perhaps the best example of paying attention to the little things and achieving huge rewards is Masaaki Imai’s approach to quality. His Kaizen model suggests that instead of improving one facet of production by 10 per cent in an effort to improve quality, ...