Peter Drucker Quotes

Every enterprise is a learning and teaching institution. Training and development must be built into it on all levels — training and development that never stop.

If the executive lets the flow of events determine what he does, what he works on, and what he takes seriously, he will fritter himself away “operating.” He may be an excellent man. But he is certain to waste his knowledge and ability and to throw away what little effectiveness he might have achieved. What the executive needs are criteria which enable him to work on the truly important, that is, on contributions and results, even though the criteria are not found in the flow of events.

Successful careers are not planned. They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values.

The companies that refused to make hard choices, or refused to admit that anything much was happening, fared badly. If they survive, it is only because their respective governments will not let them go under.

Managing yourself requires taking responsibility for relationships.

plan, organize, integrate, motivate, and measure.

The knowledge that we consider knowledge proves itself in action. What we now mean by knowledge is information in action, information focused on results.

The people who get nothing done often work a great deal harder. In the first place, they underestimate the time for any one task. They always expect that everything will go right. Yet, as every executive knows, nothing ever goes right. The unexpected always happens — the unexpected is indeed the only thing one can confidently expect.

All military services have long ago learned that the officer who has given an order goes out and sees for himself whether it has been carried out. At the least he sends one of his own aides — he never relies on what he is told by the subordinate to whom the order was given. Not that he distrusts the subordinate; he has learned from experience to distrust communications.

You should not change yourself, but create yourself, that mean build around your strengths and removing bad habits

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

Is this still worth doing?” And if it isn’t, he gets rid of it so as to be able to concentrate on the few tasks that, if done with excellence, will really make a difference in the results of his own job and in the performance of his organization.

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

The human being is a very poorly designed machine tool. The human being excels in coordination. He excels in relating perception to action. He works best if the entire human being, muscles, senses, and mind, is engaged in the work.

The first rule in decision-making is that one does not make a decision unless there is disagreement.