Quotes from Peter F. Drucker

One reason why it is difficult for management to accept unexpected success is that all of us tend to believe that anything that has lasted a fair amount of time must be 'normal' and go on 'forever'. Anything that contradicts what we have come to consider a law of nature is then rejected as unsound, unhealthy, and obviously abnormal.

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.

Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the "naturals," the ones who somehow know how to teach.

We know nothing about motivation. All we can do is write books about it.

A business exists to create a customer

Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets out and is willing to pay for. A product is not quality because it is hard to make and costs a lot of money, as manufacturers typically believe. This is incompetence. Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes quality.

Since we live in an age of innovation, a practical education must prepare a man for work that does not yet exist and cannot yet be clearly defined.

Meetings are a symptom of bad organization. The fewer meetings the better.

The only things that evolve by themselves in an organization are disorder, friction, and malperformance.

Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement.

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

The talk you hear about adapting to change is not only stupid, it's dangerous. The only way you can manage change is to create it.

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

Few companies that installed computers to reduce the employment of clerks have realized their expectations.... They now need more, and more expensive clerks even though they call them "operators" or "programmers."

Leave enough time unscheduled; anyone in a decision-making position should, as a rule, schedule no more than half his time.

Every organization of today has to build into its very structure the management of change.

No More Salvation by Society

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

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

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

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

Leadership is not magnetic personality, that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not "making friends and influencing people", that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.

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.

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.