Peter Drucker Quotes

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."

"No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organized in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings."

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."

"Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things."

"Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."

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

"The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself."

"Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work."

"We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn."

"Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed."

"Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action."

"The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity."

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

"Never mind your happiness; do your duty."

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

"Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes."

"Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes."

"The purpose of a business is to create a customer."

"The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different."

"Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility."

"The new information technology... Internet and e-mail... have practically eliminated the physical costs of communications."

"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."

"The computer is a moron."

"Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth."

"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."

"Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done."

"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."

"So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work."

"Management by objective works - if you know the objectives. Ninety percent of the time you don't."

"Manners are the lubricating oil of an organization. It is a law of nature that two moving bodies in contact with each other create friction. This is as true for human beings as it is for inanimate objects."