"There is no reason to believe that the people who staff the managerial and professional positions in our service institutions are any less qualified, any less competent or honest, or any less hard-working than the men who manage businesses. Conversely, there is no reason to believe that business managers, put in control of service institutions, would do better than the 'bureaucrats'. Indeed, we know that they immediately become bureaucrats themselves."
Peter Drucker
Management Consultant, Author
Peter Drucker was a management consultant and author known for his contributions to modern business practices and the concept of management by objectives.
- Born
- November 19, 1909
- Died
- November 11, 2005
- Quotes
- 592
- Rank
- #311
Quote collection
Peter Drucker quotes (page 17 of 30)
592 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"There's nothing so useless than executing a task efficiently when it actually never should have been executed at all."
"Decisions of the kind the executive has to make are not made well by acclamation. They are made well only if based on the clash of conflicting views...The first rule in decision-making is that one does not make a decision unless there is disagreement."
"No one has ever failed to find the facts they are looking for."
"And no matter how serious an environmental problem the automobile poses in today's big city, the horse was dirtier, smelled worse, killed and maimed more people, and congested the streets just as much."
"Many studies of research scientists have shown that achievement (at least below the genius level of an Einstein, Bohr, or a Planck) depends less on ability in doing research than on the courage to go after opportunity."
"Everybody has accepted by now that change is unavoidable. But that still implies that change is like death and taxes - it should be postponed as long as possible and no change would be vastly preferable. But in a period of upheaval, such as the one we are living in, change is the norm."
"Increasingly, politics is not about "who gets what, when, how" but about values, each of them considered to be absolute. Politics is about "the right to life"...It is about the environment. It is about gaining equality for groups alleged to be oppressed...None of these issues is economic. All are fundamentally moral."
"The most important, and indeed the truly unique, contribution of management in the 20th century was the fifty-fold increase in the productivity of the MANUAL WORKER in manufacturing. The most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century is similarly to increase the productivity of KNOWLEDGE WORK and the KNOWLEDGE WORKER."
"Business enterprise is an organ of society. There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer."
"Objectives are not commands; they are commitments."
"The most probable assumption is that no currently working 'business theory' will be valid 10 years hence."
"The question that faces the strategic decision maker is not what his organisation should do tomorrow. It is, what do we have to do today to be ready for an uncertain tomorrow?"
"Progress is obtained only by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems. When you solve problems, all you do is guarantee a return to normalcy."
"The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers."
"Great wisdom not applied to action and behavior is meaningless data."
"Entrepreneurs believe that profit is what matters most in a new enterprise. But profit is secondary. Cash flow matters most."
"It has been said, and only half in jest, that a tough, professionally led union is a great force for improving management performance. It forces the manager to think about what he is doing and to be able to explain his actions and behavior."
"There is a great need for a new approach, new methods and new tools in teaching, man's oldest and most reactionary craft. There is great need for a rapid increase in the productivity of learning. There is, above all, great need for methods that will make the teacher effective and multiply his or her efforts and competence. Teaching is, in fact, the only traditional craft in which we have not yet fashioned the tools that make an ordinary person capable of superior performance. In this respect, teaching is far behind medicine, where the tools first became available a century or more ago."
"Teamwork is neither "good" nor "desirable." It is a fact. Wherever people work together or play together they do so as a team. Which team to use for what purpose is a crucial, difficult and risky decision that is even harder to unmake. Managements have yet to learn how to make it."