Quote collection
592 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Most executives have learned that what one postpones, one actually abandons ... timing is a most important element in the success of any effort. To do five years later what would have been smart to do five years earlier, is almost a sure recipe for frustration and failure."
"Results is all that separates one company from another."
"Executives do many things in addition to making decisions. But only executives make decisions. The first managerial skill is, therefore, the making of effective decisions."
"A person can perform only from strength. One cannot build performance on weakness, let alone on something one cannot do at all."
"Successful people know they need to get many things done-and done effectively. Therefore, they concentrate their time and energy on doing one thing at a time-and on doing first things firs."
"The Welfare State, which begun in Imperial Germany for the truly indigent and disabled, has now become "everybody's entitlement" and an increasing burden on those who produce."
"Although he reputedly hated the label of 'guru', Peter Drucker was, by any standards, the greatest management guru the world has yet seen. In 1996, the McKinsey Quarterly journal described him as the 'the one guru to whom other gurus kowtow' and Robert Heller described him as 'the greatest man in the history of management', praise indeed for a man who described himself as 'just an old journalist'."
"Salvation by society failed the most where it promised the most, in the communist countries. But it also failed in the West. Practically no government program enacted since the 1950s in the Western world - or in the communist countries - has been successful."
"Yet there is nothing more dangerous than to be premature in exploiting a change in perception."
"Look at government programs for the past fifty years. Every single one - except warfare - achieved the exact opposite of its announced goal."
"If war production should remain the only way out of a long-term depression, industrial society would be reduced to the choice between suicide through total war or suicide through total depression."
"When a resource is scarce, you increase its yield."
"A success that has outlived its usefulness may, in the end, be more damaging than failure."
"The most important work of the executive is to identify the changes that have already happened. The important thing . . . is to exploit the changes that have already occurred and to use them as opportunities."
"The dilemma of modern society: the conflict between the need for capital formation at a high rate and the popular condemnation of interest and dividends as "unearned income" and "capitalist," if not as sinful and wicked."
"Profit is not the explanation, cause, or rationale of business behavior and business decisions, but the test of their validity."
"Promotion should not be more important than accomplishment, or avoiding instability more important than taking the right risk."
"It is commonly believed that innovations create changes - but few ever do. Successful innovations exploit changes that have already happened."
"Effective organizations put people in jobs in which they can do the most good. They place people -- and allow people to place themselves -- according to their strengths."
"We can't make people better by trying to eliminate their weaknesses, but we can help then perform better by building on their strengths."