Peter F. Drucker Quotes

The truly important events on the outside are not the trends. They are changes in the trends.

The most important thing about priorities and posteriorities is not intelligent analysis but courage.

No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it.

The assertion that "somebody else will not let me do anything" should always be suspected as a cover-up for inertia.

The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.

Entrepreneurship is "risky" mainly because so few of the so-called entrepreneurs know what they are doing.

The best way to predict your future is to create it

This failure to ask reflects human stupidity less than it reflects human history.

plan, organize, integrate, motivate, and measure.

The problem in my life and other people's lives is not the absence of knowing what to do but the absence of doing it.

It is more productive to convert an opportunity into results than to solve a problem - which only restores the equilibrium of yesterday.

The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the
product or service fits him and sells itself.

The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers.
The true dangerous thing is asking the wrong question.

Managers are action-focused; they are not philosophers and should not be.

Effective executives know that their subordinates are paid to perform and not to please their superiors.

There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.

Business has only two functions - marketing and innovation.

Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.

A well-managed factory is boring. Nothing exciting happens in it because the crises have been anticipated and have been converted into routine.

Staffing the opportunities instead of the problems not only creates the most effective organization, it also creates enthusiasm and dedication.

We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.

Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes

Success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know themselves - their strengths, their values, and how they best perform.

There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.

Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship ... the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.

Only a clear, focused, and common mission can hold the organization together and enable it to produce results.

We need far too many leaders to depend only on the naturals.

Two hundred people, of course, can do a great deal more work than one man. But it does not follow that they produce and contribute more.

Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.

Keep your eye on the task, not on yourself. The task matters, and you are a servant.

others is required, it probably indicates a lack of courtesy - that is, a lack of manners.

I've seen more institutions damaged by too much caution than by rashness, though I've seen both.

What's measured improves

Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.

2. Don't diversify, don't splinter, don't try to do too many things at once. This is, of course, the corollary to the 'do': be focused!

Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.

There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.

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.

Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.

If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old

To make knowledge productive, we will have to learn to see both forest and tree. We will have to learn to connect.

This defines entrepreneur and entrepreneurship - the entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.

There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all.

The aim of strategic planning is action now.

Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice.

Strategy is a commodity, execution is an art.

Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.

A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge.

Meetings are by definition a concession to deficient organization For one either meets or one works. One cannot do both at the same time.

What is our mission? Who is our customer? What does the customer value? What are our results? and What is our plan?

a decision without an alternative is a desperate gambler's throw,

Efficiency is doing the thing right. Effectiveness is doing the right thing.

Knowledge work is not defined by quantity. Neither is knowledge work defined by its costs. Knowledge work is defined by its results.

Working on the right things is what makes knowledge work effective.

Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.

While almost every large organization has an appraisal procedure, few of them actually use it.

1. What is our mission? 2. Who is our customer? 3. What does the customer value? 4. What are our results? 5. What is our plan?2

When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course.

Of all the important pieces of self-knowledge, understanding how you learn is the easiest to acquire.

But there seems to be little correlation between a man's effectiveness and his intelligence, his imagination or his knowledge.

Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.

Your first and foremost job as a leader is to take charge of your own energy and then help to orchestrate the energy of those around you.

If there is any one "secret" of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time.

The secret is that effective executives make the strengths of the boss productive.

The subject of this book is managing oneself for effectiveness.

Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.

Effectiveness must be learned.

So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.

Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.

One cannot hire a hand - the whole man always comes with it,

Entrepreneurs innovate. Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship.

In the Next Society's corporation, top management will be the company. Everything else can be outsourced.

Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge are essential resources, but only effectiveness converts them into results.

Results are obtained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems.

A person can perform only from strength. One cannot build performance on weakness, let alone on something one cannot do at all.

The computer is a moron.