1/ The best way to predict the future is to create it.
2/ There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
3/ The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t said.
4/ The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.
5/ Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
6/ Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
7/ The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.
8/ Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.
9/ Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement.
10/ Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.
11/Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.
12/ So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.
13/ My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.
14/ Management by objective works – if you know the objectives. Ninety percent of the time you don’t.
15/ Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes
16/ Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you’ve got.
17/The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.
18/ 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.
19/ Accept the fact that we have to treat almost anybody as a volunteer.
20/ The purpose of a business is to create a customer.
21/ When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course.
22/ 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.
23/ 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.
24/ Business, that’s easily defined – it’s other people’s money.
25/ Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives’ decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake.
26/ A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge.
— Peter Drucker —