Peter Drucker Quotes
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The world political system is till based on the concept of the national sovereign state. For the first time therefore, in three hundred years economy and sovereignty are becoming divorced from each other.
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People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.
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With Christianity, freedom and equality became the two basic concepts of Europe; they are themselves Europe.
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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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Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes... but no plans.
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We will have to learn to lead people rather then to contain them.
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Communication is always 'propaganda.' The emitter always wants 'to get something across.'
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'Loafing' is easy, but 'leisure' is difficult.
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The major incentive to productivity and efficiency are social and moral rather than financial.
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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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Success always obsoletes the very behavior that achieved it.
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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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Management has authority only as long as it performs.
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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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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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A manager's task is to make the strengths of people effective and their weakness irrelevant - and that applies fully as much to the manager's boss as it applies to the manager's subordinates
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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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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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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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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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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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No matter how deeply wedded one may be to the free enterprise system (and I, for one, am wedded for life), one has to accept the need for positive government; one has to consider government action on a sizable scale as desirable rather than as a necessary evil.
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Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.
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Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.