If analysis shows that someone's brilliant work fails again and again as soon as cooperation from others is required, it probably indicates a lack of courtesy - that is, a lack of manners.
— Peter Drucker
Suppliers and especially manufacturers have market power because they have information about a product or a service that the customer does not and cannot have, and does not need if he can trust the brand. This explains the profitability of brands.
Executives owe it to the organization and to their fellow workers not to tolerate nonperforming individuals in important jobs.
A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge.
Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement.
My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.
So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
Accept the fact that we have to treat almost anybody as a volunteer.
Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.
Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes... but no plans.
Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.
The most efficient way to produce anything is to bring together under one management as many as possible of the activities needed to turn out the product.
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.
Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.
Manners are the lubricating oil of an organization. It is a law of nature that two moving bodies in contact with each other create friction. This is as true for human beings as it is for inanimate objects.
Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives' decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake.
Checking the results of a decision against its expectations shows executives what their strengths are, where they need to improve, and where they lack knowledge or information.
Few companies that installed computers to reduce the employment of clerks have realized their expectations... They now need more, and more expensive clerks even though they call them 'operators' or 'programmers.'
Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.
The only thing we know about the future is that it will be different.
Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.
Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
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.
Management by objective works - if you know the objectives. Ninety percent of the time you don't.
Never mind your happiness; do your duty.
When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course.
The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said.
The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.
Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.
The new information technology... Internet and e-mail... have practically eliminated the physical costs of communications.
Making good decisions is a crucial skill at every level.
Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.
The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.
The purpose of a business is to create a customer.
The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.
We can say with certainty - or 90% probability - that the new industries that are about to be born will have nothing to do with information.
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you've got.
People who don't take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.
Business, that's easily defined - it's other people's money.
The computer is a moron.
Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.
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.
Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the 'naturals', the ones who somehow know how to teach.
