P F Drucker Quotes & Sayings

The subject of this book is managing oneself for effectiveness. — Peter F. Drucker

An organization which just perpetuates today's level of vision, excellence, and accomplishment has lost the capacity to adapt. — Peter Drucker

The postwar WWII GI Bill of Rights-and the enthusiastic response to it on the part of America's veterans-signaled the shift to the knowledge society. Future historians may consider it the most important event of the twentieth century. We are clearly in the midst of this transformation; indeed, if history is any guide, it will not be completed until 2010 or 2020. But already it has changed the political, economic and moral landscape of the world. — Peter Drucker

When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course. — Peter F. Drucker

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

We all have a vast number of areas in which we have no talent or skill and little chance of becoming even mediocre. In those areas a knowledge workers should not take on work, jobs and assignments. It takes far more energy to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence. — Peter F. Drucker

There is every indication that the period ahead will be an innovative one, one of rapid change in technology , society , economy , and institutions . — Peter Drucker

Tomorrow everybody - or practically everybody - will have had the education of the upper class of yesterday, and will expect equivalent opportunities. That is why we face the problem of making every kind of job meaningful and capable of satisfying every educated man. — Peter Drucker

Doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right. — Peter Drucker

There is a point at which a transformation has to take place. — Peter Drucker

Never underrate the boss! The boss may look illiterate. He may look stupid. But there is no risk at all in overrating a boss. If you underrate him he will bitterly resent it or impute to you the deficiency in brains and knowledge you imputed to him. — Peter Drucker

Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations. Peter F. Drucker and Joseph A. Maciariello, Management: Revised Edition, 2008, p. 288. — Joseph A. Maciariello

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. — Peter Drucker

No executive has ever suffered because his subordinates were strong and effective. — Peter Drucker

There is nothing quite so useless, as doing with great efficiency, something that should not be done at all. — Peter F. Drucker

To make a living is no longer enough. Work also has to make a life. — Peter Drucker

Do first things first, and second things not at all. — Peter Drucker

There are no creeds in mathematics. — Peter Drucker

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. — Peter Drucker

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

Management must take the lead in making obsolete its own products and services rather than waiting for a competitor to do so. — Peter Drucker

More than twenty years ago, Peter Drucker described managers as "relays - human boosters for the faint, unfocused signals that pass for information in the traditional, pre-information organization. — Peter Miller

Businesses are not paid to reform customers. They are paid to satisfy customers. — Peter Drucker

The enterprise that does not innovate ages and declines. And in a period of rapid change such as the present, the decline will be fast. — Peter Drucker

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. — Peter Drucker

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. — Peter F. Drucker

There's an enormous number of managers who have retired on the job. — Peter Drucker

Change is the norm; unless an organization sees that its task is to lead change, that organization will not survive. — Peter Drucker

Knowledge is being applied to knowledge itself. It is now fast becoming the one factor in production, sidelining both capital and labour. — Peter Drucker

I find more and more executives less and less well informed about the outside world, if only because they believe that the data on the computer printouts are ipso facto information. — Peter Drucker

Do not believe that it is very much of an advance to do the unnecessary three times as fast. — Peter Drucker

Unless strategy evaluation is performed seriously and systematically, and unless strategists are willing to act on the results, energy will be used up defending yesterday. — Peter Drucker