Peter Drucker Quotes

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.

effective executives make the strengths of the boss productive.

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

It takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.

History has been written not by the most talented but by the most motivated.

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

If you have a goal that you still postpone, that means, it's not one of your strengths

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

The danger is in acting on what you believe satisfies the customer. You will inevitably make wrong assumptions. Leadership should not even try to guess at the answers; it should always go to customers in a systematic quest for those answers.

We have only one alternative: either to build a functioning industrial society or see freedom itself disappear in anarchy and tyranny.

As this example suggests, it is rarely possible — or even particularly fruitful — to look too far ahead. A plan can usually cover no more than 18 months and still be reasonably clear and specific. So the question in most cases should be, Where and how can I achieve results that will make a difference within the next year and a half ? The answer must balance several things. First, the results should be hard to achieve — they should require “stretching,” to use the current buzzword. But also, they should be within reach. To aim at results that cannot be achieved — or that can be only under the most unlikely circumstances — is not being ambitious; it is being foolish. Second, the results should be meaningful. They should make a difference. Finally, results should be visible and, if at all possible, measurable. From this will come a course of action: what to do, where and how to start, and what goals and deadlines to set. RESPONSIBILITY

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

To do the most good requires saying no to pressures to stray, and the discipline to stop doing what does not fit.

Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion. And it has been proven as much of an illusion in Stalinist Russia as it proven an illusion in pre-Hitler Germany. Communism in anything but name was abandoned in Russia when the Five-Year Plan was substituted for the New Economic Policy (NEP) after Lenin’s death.

There is a definite trend in Italy and Germany to eliminate profit participation and the ownership rights of nonmanaging partners and shareholders.