Peter Drucker Quotes

“We spend a lot of time teaching leaders what to do. We don't spend enough time teaching leaders what to stop. Half the leaders I have met don't need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop”

“Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong... And yet, a person can perform only from strength.”

“Trees die from the top”. No one should ever become a strategist unless he or she is willing to have his or her character serve as a model for subordinates”

“The best plan is only a plan... unless it degerates into work.”

“The tool user, provided the tool is made well, need not, and indeed should not, know anything about the tool.”

“To succeed in this new world, we will have to learn, first, who we are. Few people, even highly successful people, can answer the questions, Do you know what you're good at? Do you know what you need to learn so that you get the full benefit of your strengths? Few have even asked themselves these questions.”

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

“The only skill that will be important in the 21st century is the skill of learning new skills.Everythi ng else will become obsolete over time.”

“Luck never built a business. Prosperity and growth come only to the business that systematically finds and exploits its potential.”

“People who need certainty are unlikely to make good entrepreneurs.”

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

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

“The organization is, above all, social. It is people.”

“There is one qualification the manager cannot acquire but must bring to the task. It is not genius; it is character.”

“The world economy is not yet a community--not even an economic community...Yet the existence of the "global shopping center" is a fact that cannot be undone. The vision of an economy for all will not be forgotten again.”

“Our society has become an employee society.”

“The basic economic resource - the means of production -is no longer capital, nor natural resources, nor labor.It is and will be knowledge.”

“One either meets or one works.”

“Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes quality.”

“The greatest challenge to organizations is the balance between continuity and change. You need both. At different times, the balance is slightly more over here, or slightly more over there, but you need both. And balance is basically the greatest task in leadership. Organizations have to have continuity, and yet if there is not enough new challenge, not enough change, they become empty bureaucracies, awfully fast.”

“What people in business think they know about the customer and market is likely to be more wrong than right...the customer rarely buys what the business thinks it sells him.”

“The concept of profit maximization is, in fact, meaningless.”

“It is willingness of people to give of themselves over and above the demands of the job that distinguishes the great from the merely adequate.”

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

“When the business grows, the person who founded it is incredibly busy. Rapid growth puts an enormous strain on a business. You outgrow your production facilities. You outgrow your management capabilities.”