"The difference between management and administration (which is what bureaucrats used to do exclusively) is the difference between choice and rigidity"
About this Quote
Heller’s line is a neat bit of late-20th-century corporate politics: it flatters “management” as agile, discretionary, even faintly heroic, while demoting “administration” to a dusty back office of rules and rubber stamps. The wording is doing more than defining terms. It’s waging a branding war.
Calling bureaucrats people who “used to do [administration] exclusively” smuggles in a historical arc: modern organizations, he implies, can’t afford the old civil-service posture of process-for-process’s-sake. “Choice” is the prestige word here. It suggests strategy, judgment, accountability, and the freedom to prioritize. “Rigidity,” by contrast, is framed as a defect rather than a safeguard. That’s the subtext: procedures aren’t just slow; they’re morally suspect because they constrain the will of the competent decider.
It’s also a clever simplification. Administration is portrayed as a static machine, management as a living mind. In practice, “rigidity” often equals consistency, fairness, auditability, and institutional memory - the very qualities that keep organizations from turning into personality-driven fiefdoms. Heller’s distinction speaks to a moment when businesses were selling themselves on responsiveness: deregulation, shareholder pressure, and the rise of management theory as cultural authority. The quote reassures executives that bending the rules isn’t negligence; it’s leadership.
Underneath, there’s a warning and a temptation: if you want to be seen as a manager rather than an administrator, you must perform choice - even when the smartest move is to respect the system.
Calling bureaucrats people who “used to do [administration] exclusively” smuggles in a historical arc: modern organizations, he implies, can’t afford the old civil-service posture of process-for-process’s-sake. “Choice” is the prestige word here. It suggests strategy, judgment, accountability, and the freedom to prioritize. “Rigidity,” by contrast, is framed as a defect rather than a safeguard. That’s the subtext: procedures aren’t just slow; they’re morally suspect because they constrain the will of the competent decider.
It’s also a clever simplification. Administration is portrayed as a static machine, management as a living mind. In practice, “rigidity” often equals consistency, fairness, auditability, and institutional memory - the very qualities that keep organizations from turning into personality-driven fiefdoms. Heller’s distinction speaks to a moment when businesses were selling themselves on responsiveness: deregulation, shareholder pressure, and the rise of management theory as cultural authority. The quote reassures executives that bending the rules isn’t negligence; it’s leadership.
Underneath, there’s a warning and a temptation: if you want to be seen as a manager rather than an administrator, you must perform choice - even when the smartest move is to respect the system.
Quote Details
| Topic | Management |
|---|
More Quotes by Robert
Add to List
