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Ideas Are Somewhat Like Babies - They Are Born Small, Immature, And Shapeless. They Are Promise Rather Than Fulfillment. In The Innovative Company Executives Do Not Say, "this Is A Damn-fool Idea." Instead They Ask, "what Would Be Needed To Make This Embryonic, Half-baked, Foolish Idea Into Something That Makes Sense, That Is An Opportunity For Us?"
-Peter Drucker
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Ideas Are Somewhat Like

Peter Drucker
Ideas Are Somewhat Like Babies - They Are Born Small, Immature, And Shapeless. They Are Promise Rather Than Fulfillment. In The Innovative Company Executives Do Not Say, "this Is A Damn-fool Idea." Instead They Ask, "what Would Be Needed To Make This Embryonic, Half-baked, Foolish Idea Into Something That Makes Sense, That Is An Opportunity For Us?"
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Baby
Opportunity
Ideas
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What We Need Is An Entrepreneurial Society In Which Innovation And Entrepreneurship Are Normal, Steady And Continuous.
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There's No Such Thing As Knowledge Management; There Are Only Knowledgeable People. Information Only Becomes Knowledge In The Hands Of Someone Who Knows What To Do With It.
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Without Institution There Is No Management. But Without Management There Is No Institution.
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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.
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Business Enterprise Is An Organ Of Society. There Is Only One Valid Definition Of Business Purpose: To Create A Customer.
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The Greatest Challenge To Organizations Is The Balance Between Continuity And Change. You Need Both. At Different Times, The Balance Is Slightly More Over Here, Or Slightly More Over There, But You Need Both. And Balance Is Basically The Greatest Task In Leadership. Organizations Have To Have Continuity, And Yet If There Is Not Enough New Challenge, Not Enough Change, They Become Empty Bureaucracies, Awfully Fast.
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Managers Are The Basic And Scarcest Resource Of Any Business Enterprise.
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Large Organizations Cannot Be Versatile. A Large Organization Is Effective Through Its Mass Rather Than Through Its Agility. Fleas Can Jump Many Times Their Own Height, But Not An Elephant.
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For The First Four Years, No New Enterprise Produces Profits. Even Mozart Didn't Start Writing Music Until He Was Four.
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There Are Just Two Questions To Ask To Attain Success In Business: First, "what Business Am I In?" Second, "how's Business?"
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Business Purpose And Business Mission Are So Rarely Given Adequate Thought Is Perhaps The Most Important Cause Of Business Frustration And Failure.
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Management Is Not Being Brilliant. Management Is Being Conscientious.
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Communication Always Makes Demands. It Always Demands That The Recipient Become Somebody, Do Something, Believe Something. It Always Appeals To Motivation.
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An Institution Which Is Financed By A Budget - Or Which Enjoys A Monopoly Which The Customer Cannot Escape - Is Rewarded For What It Deserves Rather Than What It Earns. It Is Paid For 'good Intentions' And 'programs'. It Is Paid For Not Alienating Important Constituents Rather Than Satisfying Any One Group. It Is Misdirected By The Way It Is Being Paid Into Defining Performance And Results As What Will Produce The Budget Rather Than As What Will Produce Contribution.
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Quality In A Product Or Service Is Not What The Supplier Puts In. It Is What The Customer Gets Out And Is Willing To Pay For. A Product Is Not Quality Because It Is Hard To Make And Costs A Lot Of Money, As Manufacturers Typically Believe. This Is Incompetence. Customers Pay Only For What Is Of Use To Them And Gives Them Value. Nothing Else Constitutes Quality.
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Strategy Is A Commodity, Execution Is An Art.
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The Essence Of Management Is To Make Knowledge Productive.
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Leadership Is More Doing Than Dash.
Capital Formation Is Shifting From The Entrepreneur Who Invests In The Future To The Pension Trustee Who Invests In The Past.
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The First Step Toward Making The Worker Achieving Is To Make Work Productive.
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We Live In An Age Of Unprecedented Opportunity: If You’ve Got Ambition And Smarts, You Can Rise To The Top Of Your Chosen Profession, Regardless Of Where You Started Out.
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Marketing Is The Distinguishing, Unique Function Of The Business.
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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.
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Most Americans Do Not Know What Their Strengths Are. When You Ask Them, They Look At You With A Blank Stare, Or They Respond In Terms Of Subject Knowledge, Which Is The Wrong Answer.
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I No Longer Think That Learning How To Manage People, Especially Subordinates, Is The Most Important For Executives To Learn. I Am Teaching Above All Else, How To Manage Oneself.
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One Can Either Work Or Meet. One Cannot Do Both At The Same Time.
You Can Either Take Action, Or You Can Hang Back And Hope For A Miracle. Miracles Are Great, But They Are So Unpredictable.
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Entrepreneurship Rests On A Theory Of Economy And Society. The Theory Sees Change As Normal And Indeed As Healthy. And It Sees The Major Task In Society – And Especially In The Economy – As Doing Something Different Rather Than Doing Better What Is Already Being Done. This Is Basically What Say, Two Hundred Years Ago, Meant When He Coined The Term Entrepreneur.
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Executives Owe It To The Organization And To Their Fellow Workers Not To Tolerate Nonperforming Individuals In Important Jobs.
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The 1st Question The Effective Decision-maker Asks Is: 'is This A Generic Situation Or An Exception?'
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Do Not Measure Your Life By Your Goals But What You Are Doing To Achieve Them.
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Profit Is Not The Explanation, Cause, Or Rationale Of Business Behavior And Business Decisions, But The Test Of Their Validity.
Decision
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In The Western Tradition, We Have Focused On Teaching As A Skill And Forgotten What Socrates Knew: Teaching Is A Gift, Learning Is A Skill.
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It Does Not Matter Whether The Worker Wants Responsibility Or Not, ...the Enterprise Must Demand It Of Him.
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The Organization Is, Above All, Social. It Is People.
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Rank Does Not Confer Privilege Or Give Power. It Imposes Responsibility.
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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?
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The Computer Is A Moron.
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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.
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Knowledge People And Service People Learn The Most When They Teach .
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Universities Won't Survive. The Future Is Outside The Traditional Campus, Outside The Traditional Classroom. Distance Learning Is Coming On Fast.
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The Ultimate Resource In Economic Development Is People. It Is People, Not Capital Or Raw Materials That Develop An Economy.
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Miracles Are Great, But They're So Damn Unpredictable.
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An Executive Should Be A Realist; And No One Is Less Realistic Than The Cynic.
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You Cannot Predict The Future, But You Can Create It.
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If A Manager Spends More Than 10 Percent Of His Time On "human Relations" The Group Is Probably Too Large.
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We Know Nothing About Motivation. All We Can Do Is Write Books About It.
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People Alone Of All The Resources Can Grow And Develop.
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In The Knowledge Economy Everyone Is A Volunteer, But We Have Trained Our Managers To Manage Conscripts.
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When A Resource Is Scarce, You Increase Its Yield.
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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.
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Leaders Shouldn?t Attach Moral Significance To Their Ideas: Do That, And You Can?t Compromise.
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The Basic Definition Of The Business And Of Its Purpose And Mission Have To Be Translated Into Objectives.
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Concentration Is The Key To Economic Results. No Other Principle Of Effectiveness Is Violated As Constantly Today As The Basic Principle Of Concentration.... Our Motto Seems To Be, "let's Do A Little Bit Of Everything."
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If "socialism" Is Defined As "ownership Of The Means Of Production"--and This Is Both The Orthodox And The Only Rigorous Definition--then The United States Is The First Truly Socialist Country.
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Mean
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That The Government's Power Under The Taft-hartley Act To Stop A Strike By Injunction So Clearly Strengthens The Hand Of The Employer-even Though It Is Used Only When A Strike Threatens The National Health, Welfare, Or Safety-is A Grave Blemish And Explains Much Of Union Resistance To The Act.
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Hands
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Balance Sheets Are Meaningless. Our Accounting Systems Are Still Based On The Assumption That 80% Of Costs Are Manual Labor.
Balance
Cost
Assumption
Nothing Is Less Productive Than To Make More Efficient What Should Not Be Done At All.
Procrastination
Productive Life
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Adversarial Power Relationships Only Work If You Never Have To See Or Work With The Bastards Again.
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Few Relationships Are As Critical To The Business Enterprise As The Relationship To The Government. Managers Have Responsibility For This Relationship As Part Of Their Responsibility To The Enterprise Itself. It Is An Area Of Social Impact Of The Business. To A Large Extent The Relationship To Government Results From What Businesses Do Or Fail To Do.
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Objectives Are Not Commands; They Are Commitments.
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Command
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Since We Live In An Age Of Innovation, A Practical Education Must Prepare A Man For Work That Does Not Yet Exist And Cannot Yet Be Clearly Defined.
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Never Ask Who's Right. Start Out By Asking What Is Right. And You Find That Out By Listening To Dissenting, Disagreeing Opinions.
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Every Time You Do Something That Is Important, Write Down What You Expect Will Happen.
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Today Knowledge Has Power. It Controls Access To Opportunity And Advancement.
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Every Enterprise Is Learning And Teaching Institution. Training And Development Must Be Built Into It On All Levels, Training And Development That Never Stop.
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Keep Your Eye On The Task, Not On Yourself. The Task Matters, And You Are A Servant
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Matter
The Experience Of The Human Race Indicates Strongly That The Only Person In Abundant Supply Is The Universal Incompetent.
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Management Is About Human Beings. Its Task Is To Make People Capable Of Joint Performance, To Make Their Strengths Effective And Their Weaknesses Irrelevant.
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Results Is All That Separates One Company From Another.
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The Fewer Data Needed, The Better The Information. And An Overload Of Information, That Is, Anything Much Beyond What Is Truly Needed, Leads To Information Blackout. It Does Not Enrich, But Impoverishes.
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Success? Odd As It Seems, You Will Achieve The Greates Results In Business And Career If You Drop The Word 'achievement' From Your Vocabulary And Replace It With 'contribution'.
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Innovation Opportunities Do Not Come With The Tempest But With The Rustling Of The Breeze.
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In The Political, The Social, The Economic, Even The Cultural Sphere, The Revolutions Of Our Time Have Been Revolutions "against" Rather Than Revolutions "for"... On The Whole Throughout This Period The Man--or Party--that Stood For Doing The Positive Has Usually Cut A Pathetic Figure; Well Meaning But Ineffectual, Civilized But Unrealistic, He Was Suspect Alike To [by Both] The Ultras Of Destruction And The Ultras Of Preservation And Restoration.
Party
Cutting
Men
This Society In Which Knowledge Workers Dominate Is In Danger Of A New "class Conflict" Between The Large Minority Of Knowledge Workers And The Majority Of Workers Who Will Make Their Livings Through Traditional Ways, Either By Manual Work... Or By Service Work. The Productivity Of Knowledge Work - Still Abysmally Low - Will Predictably Become The Economic Challenge Of The Knowledge Society. On It Will Depend The Ability Of The Knowledge Society To Give Decent Incomes, And With Them Dignity And Status, To Non Knowledge People.
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What People In Business Think They Know About The Customer And Market Is Likely To Be More Wrong Than Right...the Customer Rarely Buys What The Business Thinks It Sells Him.
Thinking
People
Knows
Businesses Once Grew By One Of Two Ways; Grass Roots Up, Or By Acquisition... Today Businesses Grow Through Alliances - All Kinds Of Dangerous Alliances. Joint Ventures And Customer Partnerings Which, By The Way, Very Few People Understand.
Art
War
Two
Every Single Social And Global Issue Of Our Day Is A Business Opportunity In Disguise.
Opportunity
Issues
Social
All Companies Are Service Companies; Some Also Manufacture Products.
Company
Products
The Only Real Difference Between One Organization And Another Is The Performance Of Its People.
Real
Organization
Differences
The Successful Person Places More Attention On Doing The Right Thing Rather Than Doing Things Right.
Success
Inspiration
Attention
The Task Of Leadership Is To Create An Alignment Of Strengths So Strong That It Makes The System's Weaknesses Irrelevant.
Strong
Weakness
Tasks
One Does Not "manage" People. The Task Is To Lead People.
People
Doe
Tasks
"plastic Moments" Are Those Periods That Overlap When The Old Has Gone But The New Has Not Yet Arrived And When The Course Of History Is More Open To Being Shaped And Steered Than Any Other Time.
Gone
Moments
Periods
It Is More Productive To Convert An Opportunity Into Results Than To Solve A Problem - Which Only Restores The Equilibrium Of Yesterday.
Opportunity
Yesterday
Problem
Nothing Else, Perhaps, Distinguishes Effective Executives As Much As Their Tender Loving Care Of Time.
Care
Time Management
Making Time
Education Can No Longer Be The Sole Property Of The State.
Education
States
Sole
A Manager's Task Is To Make The Strengths Of People Effective And Their Weakness Irrelevant - And That Applies Fully As Much To The Manager's Boss As It Applies To The Manager's Subordinates.
People
Boss
Risk
What Managers Decide To Stop Doing Is Often More Important Than What They Decide To Do.
Important
Managers
The Better A Man Is, The More Mistakes He Will Make, For The More New Things He Will Try. I Would Never Promote To A Top-level Job A Man Who Was Not Making Mistakes...otherwise He Is Sure To Be Mediocre.
Jobs
Mistake
Failure
The Only Industries That Function Well Are The Industries That Take Responsibility For Training. The Japanese, You Know, Assume That When You First Come To Work You Know Absolutely Nothing. School Isn't Preparation For Work And Never Was.
School
Responsibility
Preparation
Fascism Is The Result Of The Collapse Of Europe's Spiritual And Social Order... Catastrophes Broke Through The Everyday Routine Which Makes Men Accept Existing Forms, Institutions And Tenets As Unalterable Natural Laws. They Suddenly Exposed The Vacuum Behind The Facade Of Society.
Spiritual
Men
Order
The Most Important Contribution Management Needs To Make In The 21st Century Is ... To Increase The Productivity Of Knowledge Work And The Knowledge Worker
Important
Knowledge Workers
Needs
To Succeed In This New World, We Will Have To Learn, First, Who We Are. Few People, Even Highly Successful People, Can Answer The Questions, Do You Know What You're Good At? Do You Know What You Need To Learn So That You Get The Full Benefit Of Your Strengths? Few Have Even Asked Themselves These Questions.
Knowledge
Successful
People
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.
Thinking
Half
Unions
An Established Company Which, In An Age Demanding Innovation, Is Not Able To Innovation, Is Doomed To Decline And Extinction.
Creativity
Innovation
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Innovation Is The Specific Instrument Of Entrepreneurship. The Act That Endows Resources With A New Capacity To Create Wealth.
Inspirational
Wise
Entrepreneur
The Next Thing To Be Said About What Long-range Planning Is Not, Is That It Does Not Deal With Future Decisions. It Deals With The Futurity Of Present Decisions. Decisions Exist Only In The Present. The Question That Faces The Long-range Planner Is Not What We Should Do Tomorrow.
Inspirational
Business
Future
It Is Commonly Believed That Innovations Create Changes - But Few Ever Do. Successful Innovations Exploit Changes That Have Already Happened.
Successful
Innovation
Happened
Most People Think They Know What They Are Good At. They Are Usually Wrong... And Yet, A Person Can Perform Only From Strength.
Strength
Thinking
People
The Need To Manage Oneself Is Creating A Revolution In Human Affairs.
Creating
Needs
Revolution
We Will Have To Learn To Lead People Rather Then To Contain Them.
People
Communication Is Always "propaganda." The Emitter Always Wants "to Get Something Across."
Communication
Want
Propaganda
Making Good Decisions Is A Crucial Skill At Every Level.
Motivational
Leadership
Business
No One Has Ever Failed To Find The Facts They Are Looking For.
Facts
Success In The Knowledge Economy Comes To Those Who Know Themselves - Their Strengths, Their Values, And How They Best Perform.
Economy
Knows
Values
Profit Is Not The Purpose Of A Business, But Rather The Test Of Its Validity
Purpose
Tests
Profit
Management Means, In The Last Analysis, The Substitution Of Thought For Brawn And Muscle, Of Knowledge For Folkways And Superstition, And Of Cooperation For Force. It Means The Substitution Of Responsibility For Obedience To Rank, And Of Authority Of Performance For The Authority Of Rank.
Leadership
Knowledge
Mean
The Enterprise That Does Not Innovate Ages And Declines. And In A Period Of Rapid Change Such As The Present, The Decline Will Be Fast.
Innovation
Growth
Age
Focus On Opportunities, Not Problems.
Opportunity
Focus
Problem
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'.
Men
Labels
World
The Most Important Decisions In Organizations Are People Decisions, And Yet Only The Military, And Only Recently, Has Begun To Ask, "if We Assign This General To Lead This Base, What Do We Expect Him To Accomplish?"
Military
Organization
People
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Lying
Miracle
Despair
No Matter How Deeply Wedded One May Be To The Free Enterprise System (and I, For One, Am Wedded For Life), One Has To Accept The Need For Positive Government; One Has To Consider Government Action On A Sizable Scale As Desirable Rather Than As A Necessary Evil.
Government
Evil
Needs
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.
Teamwork
Play
People
I Have No Interest In Celebrities. If All The Superrich Disappeared, The World Economy Would Not Even Notice. The Superrich Are Irrelevant To The Economy.
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Wealth
Economy
Innovation Requires Us To Systematically Identify Changes That Have Already Occurred In A Business - In Demographics, In Values, In Technology Or Science - And Then To Look At Them As Opportunities. It Also Requires Something That Is Most Difficult For Existing Companies To Do: To Abandon Rather Than Defend Yesterday.
Technology
Opportunity
Yesterday
History Has Been Written Not By The Most Talented But By The Most Motivated.
Motivated
Has Beens
Written
Leaders Grow; They Are Not Made.
Leadership
Leader
Made
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.
Country
Successful
Government
Entrepreneurs Believe That Profit Is What Matters Most In A New Enterprise. But Profit Is Secondary. Cash Flow Matters Most.
Believe
What Matters
Cash Flow
Businesses Are Not Paid To Reform Customers. They Are Paid To Satisfy Customers.
Reform
Customers
Paid
The Race For Quality Has No Finish Line - So Technically, It's More Like A Death March. Efficiency Is Doing Things Right; Effectiveness Is Doing The Right Things.
Race
Effectiveness
Quality
Decision Making Is The Specific Executive Task.
Decision
Tasks
Decision Making
Culture Eats Christianity For Breakfast.
Culture
Breakfast
Christianity
The Moment People Talk Of "implementing" Instead Of "doing," And Of "finalizing" Instead Of "finishing," The Organization Is Already Running A Fever.
Running
Organization
People
The Manager Who Comes Up With The Right Solution To The Wrong Problem Is More Dangerous Than The Manager Who Comes Up With The Wrong Solution To The Right Problem.
Problem
Come Up
Dangerous
Here I Am, Fifty-eight, And I Still Don't Know What I'm Going To Be When I Grow Up.
Growing Up
Eight
Here I Am
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.'
Expectations
Clerks
Needs
An Effective Executive Builds On Strengths - Their Own Strengths, The Strengths Of Superiors, Colleagues, Subordinates, And On The Strength Of The Situation.
Situation
Colleagues
Executives
Erroneous Assumptions Can Be Disastrous.
Thinking
Decision
Assumption
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.
Leadership
Average
Needs
A Fundamental Responsibility Of Leadership Is Make Sure That Everybody Knows The Mission, Understands It, Lives It.
Responsibility
Fundamentals
Missions
Effective Innovations Start Small. They Are Not Grandiose. They Try To Do One Specific Thing.
Innovation
Trying
Grandiose
The Individual Needs The Return To Spiritual Values, For He Can Survive In The Present Human Situation Only By Reaffirming That Man Is Not Just A Biological And Psychological Being But Also A Spiritual Being, That Is Creature, And Existing For The Purposes Of His Creator And Subject To Him.
Spiritual
Men
Needs
Objectives Can Be Compared To A Compass Bearing By Which A Ship Navigates. A Compass Bearing Is Firm, But In Actual Navigation, A Ship May Veer Off Its Course For Many Miles. Without A Compass Bearing, A Ship Would Neither Find Its Port Nor Be Able To Estimate The Time Required To Get There.
May
Able
Ships
One Cannot Manage Change. One Can Only Be Ahead Of It.
Change
Manage
Mother Teresa's Numerical Results Were Not Her Greatest Contribution. Instead, She Made The World-and Especially India-conscious Of Compassion.
Mother
Compassion
World
Above All, Innovation Is Not Invention. It Is A Term Of Economics Rather Than Of Technology.
Technology
Innovation
Economics
Don't Take On Things You Don't Believe In And That You Yourself Are Not Good At. Learn To Say No. Effective Leaders Match The Objective Needs Of Their Company With The Subjective Competencies. As A Result, They Get An Enormous Amount Of Things Done Fast.
Believe
Leader
Done
As With Every Phenomenon Of The Objective Universe, The First Step Toward Understanding Work Is To Analyze It.
Understanding
Firsts
Steps
By Themselves, Character And Integrity Do Not Accomplish Anything. But Their Absence Faults Everything Else.
Integrity
Character
Faults
A Success That Has Outlived Its Usefulness May, In The End, Be More Damaging Than Failure.
May
Ends
Usefulness
Never Underrate The Boss! The Boss May Look Illiterate. He May Look Stupid. But There Is No Risk At All In Overrating A Boss. If You Underrate Him He Will Bitterly Resent It Or Impute To You The Deficiency In Brains And Knowledge You Imputed To Him.
Stupid
Boss
Risk
To Satisfy The Customer Is The Mission And Purpose Of Every Business.
Purpose
Missions
Customers
Leadership Is Not Rank, Privileges, Title Or Money. It Is Responsibility.
Responsibility
Titles
Privilege
No Financial Man Will Ever Understand Business Because Financial People Think A Company Makes Money. A Company Makes Shoes, And No Financial Man Understands That. They Think Money Is Real. Shoes Are Real.
Real
Men
Thinking
There Is No Perfect Strategic Decision. One Always Has To Pay A Price. One Always Has To Balance Conflicting Objectives, Conflicting Opinions, And Conflicting Priorities. The Best Strategic Decision Is Only An Approximation - And A Risk.
Perfect
Priorities
Decision
We Have Only One Alternative: Either To Build A Functioning Industrial Society Or See Freedom Itself Disappear In Anarchy And Tyranny.
Alternatives
Anarchy
Disappear
In Most Organizations, The Bottleneck Is At The Top Of The Bottle.
Organization
Bottles
Bottlenecks
In A Few Hundred Years, When The History Of Our Time Will Be Written From A Long-term Perspective, It Is Likely That The Most Important Event Historians Will See Is Not Technology, Not The Internet, Not E-commerce. It Is An Unprecedented Change In The Human Condition. For The First Time - Literally - Substantial And Rapidly Growing Numbers Of People Have Choices. For The First Time, They Will Have To Manage Themselves. And Society Is Totally Unprepared For It.
Technology
Important Events
Numbers
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.
Jobs
Organization
People
The Arts Alone Give Direct Access To Experience. To Eliminate Them From Education - Or Worse, To Tolerate Them As Cultural Ornaments - Is Antieducational Obscurantism. It Is Foisted On Us By The Pedants And Snobs Of Hellenistic Greece Who Considered Artistic Performance Fit Only For Slaves.
Art
Giving
Ornaments
Ideas Are Cheap And Abundant; What Is Of Value Is The Effective Placement Of Those Ideas Into Situations That Develop Into Action.
Ideas
Action
Placement
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.
Smart
Frustration
Years
Efficiency Is Doing Better What Is Already Being Done.
Teamwork
Effectiveness
Team Building
Most Discussions Of Decision Making Assume That Only Senior Executives Make Decisions Or That Only Senior Executives' Decisions Matter. This Is A Dangerous Mistake.
Senior
Business
Mistake
Yet There Is Nothing More Dangerous Than To Be Premature In Exploiting A Change In Perception.
Perception
Fragility
Dangerous
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.
Years
Up To You
May
Top Management As A Function And As A Structure Was First Developed By Georg Von Siemens (1839-1901) In Germany Between 1870 And 1880, When He Designed And Built The Deutsche Bank And Made It, Within A Very Few Years, Into Continental Europe's Leading And Most Dynamic Financial Institution.
Years
Europe
Top Management
Luck Never Built A Business. Prosperity And Growth Come Only To The Business That Systematically Finds And Exploits Its Potential.
Growth
Luck
Prosperity
The "non-profit" Institution Neither Supplies Goods Or Services Not Controls. Its "product" Is Neither A Pair Of Shoes Nor An Effective Regulation. Its Product Is A Changed Human Being. The Non-profit Institutions Are Human-change Agents. Their "product" Is A Cured Patient, A Child That Learns, A Young Man Or Woman Grown Into A Self-respecting Adult; A Changed Human Life Altogether.
Children
Men
Self
Understanding Our Strengths, Articulating Our Values, Knowing Where We Belong -- These Are Also Essential To Addressing One Of The Great Challenges Of Organizations: Improving The Abysmally Low Productivity Of Knowledge Workers.
Knowing
Organization
Understanding
Shoes Are Real. Money Is An End Result.
Real
Shoes
Ends
Human Beings Need Community. If There Are No Communities Available For Constructive Ends, There Will Be Destructive, Murderous Communities... Only The Social Sector, That Is, The Nongovernmental, Nonprofit Organization, Can Create What We Now Need, Communities For Citizens... What The Dawning 21st Century Needs Above All Is Equally Explosive Growth Of The Nonprofit Social Sector In Building Communities In The Newly Dominant Social Environment, The City.
Cities
Organization
Community
Time Is The Scarcest Resource.
Time
Resources
Entrepreneurship Is Neither A Science Nor An Art. It Is A Practice.
Inspirational
Art
Practice
Through Systematic Terror, Through Indoctrination, Through Systematic Manipulation Of Stimulus, Reward, And Punishment, We Can Today Break Man And Convert Him Into Brute Animal... The First Step Toward Survival Is Therefore To Make Government Legitimate Again By Attempting To Deprive It Of These Powers... By International Action To Ban Such Powers.
Animal
Men
Survival
Whenever You See A Successful Business, Someone Once Made A Courageous Decision.
Inspirational
Success
Confidence
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.
Strength
Wise
Information Knowledge
The Fundamental Reality For Every Worker, From Sweeper To Executive Vice-president, Is The Eight Hours Or So That He Spends On The Job. In Our Society Of Organizations, It Is The Job Through Which The Great Majority Has Access To Achievement, To Fulfillment, And To Community.
Jobs
Reality
Eight
The Postwar [wwii] Gi Bill Of Rights - And The Enthusiastic Response To It On The Part Of America's Veterans - Signaled The Shift To The Knowledge Society. Future Historians May Consider It The Most Important Event Of The Twentieth Century. We Are Clearly In The Midst Of This Transformation; Indeed, If History Is Any Guide, It Will Not Be Completed Until 2010 Or 2020. But Already It Has Changed The Political, Economic And Moral Landscape Of The World.
Rights
Important Events
America
Until We Can Manage Time, We Can Manage Nothing Else.
Time
Kick Ass
Manage
We Can Ill Afford To Have Activities Conducted As "non-profit," That Is, As Activities That Devour Capital Rather Than Form It, If They Can Be Organized As Activities That Form Capital, As Activities That Make A Profit.
Form
Profit
Ill
Innovation Is The Specific Tool Of Entrepreneurs, The Means By Which They Exploit Change As An Opportunity For A Different Business Or A Different Service.
Mean
Opportunity
Entrepreneur
Financial "synergy" Is A Will-o'-the-wisp.it Looks Good On Paper, But It Fails To Work Out In Practice.
Practice
Work Out
Looks
One Does Not Start With Facts. One Starts With Opinions.
Doe
Facts
Opinion
One Of The Great Movements In My Lifetime Among Educated People Is The Need To Commit Themselves To Action. Most People Are Not Satisfied With Giving Money; We Also Feel We Need To Work.
Work
Greatness
Giving Money
The Honest Work Of Yesterday Has Lost Its Social Status, Its Social Esteem.
Work
Yesterday
Society
No Single Piece Of Macroeconomic Advice Given By The Experts To Their Government Has Ever Had The Results Predicted.
Government
Advice
Experts
Far Too Much Reorganization Goes On All The Time. Organizitis Is Like A Spastic Colon.
Reorganization
Goes On
Too Much
Almost Everybody Today Believes That Nothing In Economic History Has Ever Moved As Fast As, Or Had A Greater Impact Than, The Information Revolution. But The Industrial Revolution Moved At Least As Fast In The Same Time Span, And Had Probably An Equal Impact If Not A Greater One.
Change
Believe
Technology
Innovative Efforts Should Never Report To Line Managers Charged With Responsibility For Ongoing Operations. The New Project Is An Infant And Will Remain One For The Foreseeable Future, And Infants Belong In The Nursery. The 'adults', That Is, The Executives In Charge Of Existing Businesses Or Products Will Have Neither The Time Nor Understanding For The Infant.
Team
Responsibility
Effort
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.
Learning
Knowledge
Unique
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.
Opportunity
Important
Use
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.
Skills
Decision
Firsts
Systematic Decision Review Also Shows Executives Their Own Weaknesses, Particularly The Areas In Which They Are Simply Incompetent. In These Areas, Smart Executives Don't Make Decisions Or Take Actions. They Delegate.
Smart
Decision
Action
Understanding Quotes: Their Essence and Application

Quotes, or quotations, are powerful tools in communication, encapsulating ideas, emotions, and wisdom in concise expressions. They serve various purposes across different contexts, from academic writing to everyday conversation.

1. Defining Quotes

A quote is a repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. It can be a direct replication of words spoken or written by another individual, often used to support arguments, provide evidence, or convey profound insights.


2. The Importance of Quotes

2.1. Enhancing Credibility

Incorporating quotes from authoritative sources can bolster the credibility of your work. By referencing experts or primary sources, you demonstrate thorough research and a solid foundation for your arguments.


2.2. Providing Evidence

Quotes serve as concrete evidence to support claims. In academic and professional writing, they validate points made, offering readers a basis to trust the information presented.


2.3. Conveying Emotions and Perspectives

Quotes can encapsulate emotions and perspectives succinctly. They allow writers to express complex feelings or viewpoints through the words of others, often more eloquently than paraphrasing.


3. Types of Quotes

3.1. Direct Quotes

Direct quotes involve copying the exact words from a source, enclosed in quotation marks. They are used when the original wording is significant or particularly well-expressed.


3.2. Indirect Quotes (Paraphrasing)

Indirect quotes restate the original message in your own words. While not enclosed in quotation marks, they still require proper attribution to the original source.


3.3. Block Quotes

Block quotes are lengthy direct quotations, formatted as a separate block of text. They are typically used for quotes exceeding a certain length, varying by citation style. For instance, in APA style, quotes longer than 40 words are formatted as block quotes.



4. Proper Usage of Quotes


4.1. Contextual Relevance

Ensure that the quote you choose is relevant to the topic and adds value to your content. Avoid inserting quotes solely for decorative purposes.


4.2. Integration into Your Writing

Seamlessly integrate quotes into your writing. Introduce them appropriately and follow up with analysis or commentary to connect them to your main points.


4.3. Attribution and Citation

Always attribute quotes to their original authors and provide proper citations according to the required style guide (APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.).


5. Common Mistakes to Avoid


5.1. Overusing Quotes

Relying too heavily on quotes can overshadow your voice. Use them sparingly to support your arguments, not replace them.


5.2. Lack of Analysis

Presenting a quote without analysis or explanation can leave readers questioning its relevance. Always follow up with your interpretation or discussion.


5.3. Misquoting or Taking Out of Context

Ensure that quotes are accurate and not taken out of context, as this can mislead readers and undermine your credibility.



6. Quotes in Different Contexts


6.1. Academic Writing

In academic writing, quotes are used to support arguments, provide evidence, and engage with existing literature. Proper citation is crucial to avoid plagiarism.


6.2. Journalism

Journalists use quotes to provide firsthand accounts, add authenticity, and present multiple perspectives within a story.


6.3. Literature and Creative Writing

In literature, quotes can be used to convey character voices, themes, and stylistic elements. They enrich narratives and provide depth to storytelling.



7. Punctuation and Formatting


Understanding the correct punctuation and formatting of quotes is essential:


Quotation Marks: Always enclose direct quotes within quotation marks.


Punctuation Placement: In American English, periods and commas are placed inside quotation marks, while colons and semicolons are placed outside.


Block Quotes: For longer quotes, format them as block quotes without quotation marks, and indent the entire block.



8. Ethical Considerations


Ethical use of quotes involves accurate representation, proper attribution, and respect for intellectual property. Misuse can lead to plagiarism, which carries serious academic and professional consequences.

9. Tools for Managing Quotes


Utilize tools like citation generators and plagiarism checkers to manage quotes effectively. These tools help ensure proper formatting and originality in your writing.



Conclusion


Quotes are invaluable in enriching content, providing evidence, and conveying complex ideas succinctly. When used appropriately, they enhance the quality and credibility of your writing. Always ensure relevance, proper integration, and ethical usage to maximize their impact.


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