Peter Drucker Quotes
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One cannot hire a hand; the whole man always comes with it.
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One has to make a decision when a condition is likely to degenerate if nothing is done.
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We no longer even understand the question whether change is by itself good or bad, ...We start out with the axiom that it is the norm. We do not see change as altering the order... We see change as being order itself-indeed the only order we can comprehend today is a dynamic, a moving, a changing one.
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'Loafing' is easy, but 'leisure' is difficult.
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I would hope that American managers - indeed, managers worldwide - continue to appreciate what I have been saying almost from day one: that management is so much more than exercising rank and privilege, that it is much more than 'making deals.' Management affects people and their lives.
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Communication is always 'propaganda.' The emitter always wants 'to get something across.'
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Management has authority only as long as it performs.
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There is every indication that the period ahead will be an innovative one, one of rapid change in technology, society, economy, and institutions.
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And no matter how serious an environmental problem the automobile poses in today's big city, the horse was dirtier, smelled worse, killed and maimed more people, and congested the streets just as much.
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The major incentive to productivity and efficiency are social and moral rather than financial.
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Executives do many things in addition to making decisions. But only executives make decisions. The first managerial skill is, therefore, the making of effective decisions.
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If 'socialism' is defined as 'ownership of the means of production'-and this is both the orthodox and the only rigorous definition-then the United States is the first truly Socialist country.
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Success always obsoletes the very behavior that achieved it.
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Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.
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We will have to learn to lead people rather then to contain them.
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Tomorrow everybody - or practically everybody - will have had the education of the upper class of yesterday, and will expect equivalent opportunities. That is why we face the problem of making every kind of job meaningful and capable of satisfying every educated man.
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Equally striking is the fact that racial anti-Semitism was not taken seriously even by the great majority of Nazis. ‘It is just a catchword to attract voters’ was a standing phrase which everybody repeated and believed, and that I took it seriously was more than once regarded as definite proof of my stupidity and gullibility.
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The fundamental reality for every worker, from sweeper to executive vice-president, is the eight hours or so that he spends on the job. In our society of organizations, it is the job through which the great majority has access to achievement, to fulfillment, and to community.
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Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.
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Ideas are somewhat like babies-they are born small, immature, and shapeless. They are promise rather than fulfillment. In the innovative company executives do not say, 'This is a damn-fool idea.' Instead they ask, 'What would be needed to make this embryonic, half-baked, foolish idea into something that makes sense, that is an opportunity for us?'
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One reason for the tremendous increase in health-care costs in the U.S. is managerial neglect of the 'hotel services' by the people who dominate the hospital, such as doctors and nurses.
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Top management as a function and as a structure was first developed by Georg von Siemens (1839-1901) in Germany between 1870 and 1880, when he designed and built the Deutsche Bank and made it, within a very few years, into continental Europe's leading and most dynamic financial institution.
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Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives' decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake.
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It does not matter whether the worker wants responsibility or not, ...The enterprise must demand it of him.