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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It is better to pick the wrong priority than none at all.

The basic definition of the business and of its purpose and mission have to be translated into objectives.

Success always obsoletes the very behavior that achieved it.

Profit is not a cause but a result-

The prevailing economic theory of business enterprise and behavior, the maximization of profit—which is simply a complicated way of phrasing the old saw of buying cheap and selling dear—may adequately explain how Richard Sears operated. But it cannot explain how Sears, Roebuck or any other business enterprise operates, nor how it should operate. The concept of profit maximization is, in fact, meaningless.

The only thing we know about the future is that it is going to be different.

A management decision is irresponsible if it risks disaster this year for the sake of a grandiose future.

A primary task of management in the developed countries in the decades ahead will be to make knowledge productive.

We will have to learn to lead people rather then to contain them.

Without institution there is no management. But without management there is no institution.

The citizen of today in every developed country is typically an employee. He works for one of the institutions. He looks to them for his livelihood. He looks to them for his opportunities. He looks to them for access to status and function in society, as well as for personal fulfillment and achievement.

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?"

All economic activity is by definition "high risk." And defending yesterday--that is, not innovating--is far more risky than making tomorrow.

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

Whenever anything is being accomplished, it is being done, I have learned, by a monomaniac with a mission.