Peter Drucker Quotes

American business consultant (1909–2005)

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Peter Ferdinand Drucker (November 19 1909 – November 11 2005) was an Austrian-born American writer, management consultant and university professor. In 1943 he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He taught at New York University and Claremont Graduate University respectively.

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Native Name: Peter Ferdinand Drucker

Alternative Names: Peter F. Drucker

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Sören Kierkegaard has another answer: human existence is possible as existence not in despair, as existence not in tragedy; it is possible as existence in faith... Faith is the belief that in God the impossible is possible, that in Him time and eternity are one, that both life and death are meaningful.

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!

We still think and talk of the basic problems of an industrial society as problems that can be solved by changing the "system," that is the superstructure of political organization. Yet the real problems lie within the [industrial] enterprise. On the contrary, it is the solution of the problems of the enterprise that will shape the system under which we live.

5. But – and this is the final ‘do’ – a successful innovation aims at leadership. It does not aim necessarily at becoming eventually a ‘big business’; in fact, no one can foretell whether a given innovation will end up as a big business or a modest achievement. But if an innovation does not aim at leadership from the beginning, it is unlikely to be innovative enough, and therefore unlikely to be capable of establishing itself. Strategies (to be discussed in Chapters 16 to 19) vary greatly, from those that aim at dominance in an industry or a market to those that aim at finding and occupying a small ‘ecological niche’ in a process or market. But all entrepreneurial strategies, that is, all strategies aimed at exploiting an innovation, must achieve leadership within a given environment. Otherwise they will simply create an opportunity for the competition.

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

Business has only two functions — marketing and innovation.

The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.

Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge are essential resources, but only effectiveness converts them into results. By themselves, they only set limits to what can be attained.

The fault is in the system and not in the men.

A decision is a judgment. It is a choice between alternatives. It is rarely a choice between right and wrong. It is at best a choice between “almost right” and “probably wrong” — but much more often a choice between two courses of action neither of which is provably more nearly right than the other.

Managers are responsible for service results.

The major incentive to productivity and efficiency are social and moral rather than financial.

[W]e have been forced to put a major emphasis on the acquisition of technical knowledge.

Large organizations cannot be versatile. A large organization is effective through its mass rather than through its agility. Fleas can jump many times their own height, but not an elephant.

Profit is not a cause but a result-