Quotes By Peter Drucker

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

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

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

Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you've got.

Business, that's easily defined - it's other people's money.

A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge.

When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course.

The purpose of a business is to create a customer.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives' decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake.

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

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

Never mind your happiness; do your duty.

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

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

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

Suppliers and especially manufacturers have market power because they have information about a product or a service that the customer does not and cannot have, and does not need if he can trust the brand. This explains the profitability of brands.

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

Few companies that installed computers to reduce the employment of clerks have realized their expectations... They now need more, and more expensive clerks even though they call them 'operators' or 'programmers.'

Executives owe it to the organization and to their fellow workers not to tolerate nonperforming individuals in important jobs.

Accept the fact that we have to treat almost anybody as a volunteer.

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

My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.