Peter Drucker Quotes

261 Sourced Quotes

The computer, being a mechanical moron, can handle only quantifiable data.

Peter Drucker
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?

Peter Drucker
Successful careers are not planned. They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and their values. Knowing where one belongs can transform an ordinary person - hardworking and competent but otherwise mediocre - into an outstanding performer.

Peter Drucker
People who need certainty are unlikely to make good entrepreneurs.

Peter Drucker
Society, community, family are all conserving institutions. They try to maintain stability, and to prevent, or at least to slow down, change. But the organization of the post-capitalist society of organizations is a destabilizer. Because its function is to put knowledge to work - on tools, processes, and products; on work; on knowledge itself - it must be organized for constant change.

Peter Drucker
Effective innovations start small. They are not grandiose. They try to do one specific thing.

Peter Drucker
Management and union may be likened to that serpent of the fables who on one body had two heads that fighting each other with poisoned fangs, killed themselves.

Peter Drucker
You cannot prevent a major catastrophe, but you can build an organization that is battle-ready, where people trust one another. In military training, the first rule is to instill soldiers with trust in their officers - because without trust, they won't fight.

Peter Drucker
Knowledge is information that changes something
or somebody - either by becoming grounds for actions, or by making an
individual (or an institution) capable of different or more effective action.

Peter Drucker
The key to greatness is to look for people's potential and spend time developing it.

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

Peter Drucker
The leader sees leadership as responsibility rather than as rank and privilege.

Peter Drucker
As a rule we perceive what we expect to perceive... The unexpected is usually not received at all.

Peter Drucker
The more successful the unit, the more difficult it is to make sure that the large company doesn't put the same expectations on it as it does for the rest of the company. When it's a new venture, whether it's outside or inside the business, it's a child. And you don't put a 40-pound pack on a 6-year-old's back when you take her hiking.

Peter Drucker
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.

Peter Drucker
Fortunately or unfortunately, the one predictable thing in any organization is the crisis. That always comes. That's when you do depend on the leader: The job of the leader is to build an organization that is battle-ready, that has high morale, that knows how to behave, that trusts itself, and where people trust one another.

Peter Drucker
The most common source of mistakes in management decisions is the emphasis on finding the right answer rather than the right question.

Peter Drucker
A business enterprise must continue beyond the lifetime of the individual or of the generation to be capable of producing its contributions to economy and to society.

Peter Drucker
There is the general belief that the corporation income tax is a tax on the "rich" and on the "fat cats." But with pension funds owning 30% of American large business-and soon to own 50%-the corporation income tax, in effect, eases the load on those in top income brackets and penalizes the beneficiaries of pension funds.

Peter Drucker
The only definition of a leader is someone who has followers.

Peter Drucker
Work is a process, and any process needs to be controlled. To make work productive, therefore, requires building the appropriate controls into the process of work.

Peter Drucker
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.

Peter Drucker
Nobody in the world is as good at making decisions as the Japanese.

Peter Drucker
As soon as you move one step up from the bottom, your effectiveness depends on your ability to reach others through the spoken and written word.

Peter Drucker
There are companies that are good at improving what they're already doing. There are companies that are good at extending what they're doing. And finally there are companies that are good at innovation. Every large company has to be able to do all three - improve, extend, and innovate - simultaneously.

Peter Drucker
Keep your eye on the task, not on yourself. The task matters, and you are a servant

Peter Drucker
The healthier a new venture and the faster it grows, the more financial feeding it requires.

Peter Drucker
It is commonly believed that innovations create changes - but few ever do. Successful innovations exploit changes that have already happened.

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

Peter Drucker
The correct assumption is that what individuals have learned by age twenty-one will begin to become obsolete five to ten years later and will have to be replaced-or at least refurbished-by new learning, new skills, new knowledge.

Peter Drucker