Peter Drucker Quotes

Do first things first, and second things not at all.

Now that knowledge is taking the place of capital as the driving force in organizations worldwide, it is all too easy to confuse data with knowledge and information technology with information.

You cannot build performance on weaknesses. You can build only on strengths.

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

Large organizations cannot be versatile. A large organization is effective through its mass rather than through its agility. Fleas can jump many times their own height, but not an elephant.

It's amazing how many things busy people are doing that never will be missed.

Every time you do something that is important, write down what you expect will happen.

Most leaders don't need to learn what to do. They need to learn what to stop.

Marketing and innovation make money. Everything else is a cost.

Knowledge is the source of Wealth. Applied to tasks we already know, it becomes Productivity. Applied to tasks that are new, it becomes Innovation.

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.

To make the future demands courage. It demands work. But it also demands faith.

Here I am, fifty-eight, and I still don't know what I'm going to be when I grow up.

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

If there is any one secret of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time.

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

One cannot manage change. One can only be ahead of it.

Any organisation develops people; it either forms them or deforms them.

As a manager you're paid to be uncomfortable. If you're comfortable, it's a sure sign you're doing things wrong.

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.

There is the risk you cannot afford to take, and there is the risk you cannot afford not to take.

Leadership is defined by results not attributes.

Management is not being brilliant. Management is being conscientious.

Replace your pursuit of success with the pursuit of contribution.

If you want to know what the future is, be part of its development.

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

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

Meetings are by definition a concession to deficient organization. For one either meets or one works.

Effective people are not problem minded; they're opportunity-minded. They feed opportunities and starve problems. They think preventively.

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

Results are obtained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems.

Profitability is the sovereign criterion of the enterprise.

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

Knowledge people and service people learn the most when they teach .

In todays economy, the most important resource is no longer labor, capital or land; it is knowledge

The successful person places more attention on doing the right thing rather than doing things right.

To make knowledge productive, we will have to learn to see both forest and tree. We will have to learn to connect.

The better a man is the more mistakes will he make – for the more new things he will try.

Every organization has to prepare for the abandonment of everything it does.

In the Western tradition, we have focused on teaching as a skill and forgotten what Socrates knew: teaching is a gift, learning is a skill.

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

I no longer think that learning how to manage people, especially subordinates, is the most important for executives to learn. I am teaching above all else, how to manage oneself.

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

What we need is an entrepreneurial society in which innovation and entrepreneurship are normal, steady and continuous.

It's more important to do the right thing than to do things right.

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

It’s up to you to carve out your place, to know when to change course, and to keep yourself engaged and productive during a work life that may span some 50 years.

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

Business has only two basic functions - marketing and innovation.

Strong people have strong weaknesses.