Background Image
...
Replace Your Pursuit Of Success With The Pursuit Of Contribution.
-Peter Drucker
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

Replace Your Pursuit Of

Peter Drucker
...
Replace Your Pursuit Of Success With The Pursuit Of Contribution.

Understanding the Quote: "replace your pursuit of success with the pursuit of contribution...."

This quote by Peter Drucker reflects deeply on the theme of pursuit. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Pursuit, Contribution, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Peter Drucker interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker is celebrated for insightful thoughts on pursuit and contribution. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 5
Topic
Pursuit
Contribution
More From Peter Drucker
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
Leaders Grow; They Are Not Made.
Leadership
Leader
Made
We Always Remember Best The Irrelevant.
Remember
Irrelevant
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.
Successful
People
Energy
The Paradox Of The Prophet: His Very Success Is His Failure. The Prophet Whose Time Has Come No Longer Shocks; He Entertains.
Vision
Paradox
Prophet
In Todays Economy, The Most Important Resource Is No Longer Labor, Capital Or Land; It Is Knowledge
Land
Important
Today
If General Perception Changes From Seeing The Glass As 'half-full' To Seeing It As 'half Empty' There Are Major Innovative Opportunities.
Opportunity
Glasses
Perception
The Single Most Important Thing To Remember About Any Enterprise Is That There Are No Results Inside Its Walls. The Result Of A Business Is A Satisfied Customer.
Inspirational
Wall
Educational
(waste = Loss): The First Rule Of Business Is To Survive And The Guiding Principle Of Business Economics Is Not The Maximisation Of Profit, It Is The Avoidance Of Loss
Business
Loss
Guiding Principles
The Aim Of Marketing Is To Make Selling Superfluous.
Marketing
Helpful
Selling
Unless The Power Of The Corporation Can Be Organized On An Accepted Principle Of Legitimacy, It Will Be Taken Over By A Central Government
Taken
Government
Principles
Executives Owe It To The Organization And To Their Fellow Workers Not To Tolerate Nonperforming Individuals In Important Jobs.
Jobs
Responsibility
Top Management
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 First Step Toward Making The Worker Achieving Is To Make Work Productive.
Firsts
Steps
Achieve
Organizations Are No Longer Built On Force, But On Trust.
Organization
Force
Built
Managers Are The Basic And Scarcest Resource Of Any Business Enterprise.
Resources
Enterprise
Managers
To Make A Living Is No Longer Enough. Work Also Has To Make A Life.
Work
Enough
Adversarial Power Relationships Only Work If You Never Have To See Or Work With The Bastards Again.
Power Relationships
Ifs
The Society Of Organizations Is New-only Seventy Years Ago Employees Were A Small Minority In Every Society.
Years
Organization
Minorities
Every Organization Must Be Prepared To Abandon Everything It Does To Survive In The Future.
Leadership
Organization
Doe
The Largest 100 Corporations Hold 25 Percent Of The Worldwide Productive Assets, Which In Turn Control 75 Percent Of International Trade And 98 Percent Of All Foreign Direct Investment.the Multinational Corporation...puts The Economic Decision Beyond The Effective Reach Of The Political Process And Its Decision-makers, National Governments.
Government
Decision
Political
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
The Basic Economic Resource - The Means Of Production - Is No Longer Capital, Nor Natural Resources, Nor Labor. It Is And Will Be Knowledge.
Knowledge
Mean
Learning
Vision Without Execution Is Delusion. The Joy Is In The Results
Joy
Vision
Execution
Managers Are Agents Of Transformation, Converting The Workforce In Developed Countries From One Of Manual Workers To One Of Highly Educated Knowledge Workers.
Country
Knowledge Workers
Agents
There Is Nothing So Useless As Doing Efficiently That Which Should Not Be Done At All.
Inspirational
Motivational
Change
It Does Not Follow From The Separation Of Planning And Doing In The Analysis Of Work That The Planner And The Doer Should Be Two Different People. It Does Not Follow That The Industrial World Should Be Divided Into Two Classes Of People: A Few Who Decide What Is To Be Done, Design The Job, Set The Pace, Rhythm And Motions, And Order Others About; And The Many Who Do What And As They Are Told.
Jobs
Order
Class
The First Organization Structure In The Modern West Was Laid Down In The Canon Law Of The Catholic Church Eight Hundred Years Ago.
Eight
Years
Law
Information Is The Manager's Main Tool, Indeed The Manager's Capital, And It Is He Who Must Decide What Information He Needs And How To Use It.
Library
Needs
Tools
If You Want It, Measure It. If You Can't Measure It, Forget It.
Leadership
Want
Forget
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 Masses] ... Must Turn Their Hopes Toward A Miracle. In The Depths Of Their Despair Reason Cannot Be Believed, Truth Must Be False, And Lies Must Be Truth. "higher Bread Prices," "lower Bread Prices," "unchanged Bread Prices" Have All Failed. The Only Hope Lies In A Kind Of Bread Price Which Is None Of These, Which Nobody Has Ever Seen Before, And Which Belies The Evidence Of One's Reason.
Lying
Miracle
Despair
Every Enterprise Is Learning And Teaching Institution. Training And Development Must Be Built Into It On All Levels, Training And Development That Never Stop.
Teaching
Training
Development
One Cannot Manage Change. One Can Only Be Ahead Of It.
Change
Manage
Progress Is Obtained Only By Exploiting Opportunities, Not By Solving Problems. When You Solve Problems, All You Do Is Guarantee A Return To Normalcy.
Opportunity
Progress
Guarantees
When A Resource Is Scarce, You Increase Its Yield.
Motivational
Yield
Increase
Businesses Are Not Paid To Reform Customers. They Are Paid To Satisfy Customers.
Reform
Customers
Paid
Wherever An Impact Can Be Eliminated By Dropping The Activity That Causes It, This Is Therefore The Best-indeed The Only Truly Good-solution.
Impact
Causes
Dropping
Everybody Has Accepted By Now That Change Is Unavoidable. But That Still Implies That Change Is Like Death And Taxes - It Should Be Postponed As Long As Possible And No Change Would Be Vastly Preferable. But In A Period Of Upheaval, Such As The One We Are Living In, Change Is The Norm.
Change
Long
Would Be
But Innovation Is More Than A New Method. It Is A New View Of The Universe, As One Of Risk Rather Than Of Chance Or Of Certainty. It Is A New View Of Man's Role In The Universe; He Creates Order By Taking Risks. And This Means That Innovation, Rather Than Being An Assertion Of Human Power, Is An Acceptance Of Human Responsibility.
Change
Mean
Responsibility
In All Recorded History There Has Not Been One Economist Who Has Had To Worry About Where The Next Meal Would Come From.
Business
Worry
Meals
A Business Is Not Defined By Its Name, Statutes, Or Articles Of Incorporation. It Is Defined By The Business Mission. Only A Clear Definition Of The Mission And Purpose Of The Organization Makes Possible Clear And Realistic Business Objectives.
Names
Organization
Purpose
One Does Not Start With Facts. One Starts With Opinions.
Doe
Facts
Opinion
Yet There Is Nothing More Dangerous Than To Be Premature In Exploiting A Change In Perception.
Perception
Fragility
Dangerous
The Purpose Of An Organization Is To Enable Ordinary Humans Beings To Do Extraordinary Things.
Organization
Ordinary
Purpose
The Computer Actually May Have Aggravated Management's Degenerative Tendency To Focus Inward On Costs.
Focus
Inward
Cost
Luck Never Built A Business. Prosperity And Growth Come Only To The Business That Systematically Finds And Exploits Its Potential.
Growth
Luck
Prosperity
To Improve Communications, Work Not On The Utter, But The Recipient.
Communication
Empathy
Understanding
What Managers Decide To Stop Doing Is Often More Important Than What They Decide To Do.
Important
Managers
Profit For A Company Is Like Oxygen For A Person. If You Don't Have Enough Of It, You're Out Of The Game. But If You Think Your Life Is About Breathing, You're Really Missing Something.
Thinking
Oxygen
Breathing
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
Customers Pay Only For What Is Of Use To Them And Gives Them Value. Nothing Else Constitutes Quality.
Giving
Quality
Use
And No Matter How Serious An Environmental Problem The Automobile Poses In Today's Big City, The Horse Was Dirtier, Smelled Worse, Killed And Maimed More People, And Congested The Streets Just As Much.
Horse
Cities
People
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.
Different
Information
Becoming
The Rule Should Be To Minimize The Need For People To Get Together To Accomplish Anything.
People
Together
Needs
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.
Believe
Giving
Quality
The Most Critical Case In A Corporation, Especially A Big One, Is When Everything Goes Well, When You Have Accomplished Your Objectives. When The Temptation Is To Work Twice As Hard Instead Of Saying, "we Have Accomplished Our Objectives, We Have To Think Again."
Business
Thinking
Temptation
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.
Years
Skills
Age
The Worker's Effectiveness Is Determined Largely By The Way He Is Being Managed.
Effectiveness
Way
Determined
Making Changes To Better Appeal To Customer Is Innovation.
Innovation
Making Changes
Appeals
What Is The Major Problem? It Is Fundamentally The Confusion Between Effectiveness And Efficiency That Stands Between Doing The Right Things And Doing Things Right. There Is Surely Nothing Quite So Useless As Doing With Great Efficiency What Should Not Be Done At All.
Effectiveness
Confusion
Done
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.
Elephants
Organization
Agility
The Single Most Important Thing To Remember About Any Enterprise Is That Results Exist Only On The Outside.the Result Of A Business Is A Satisfied Customer. The Result Of A Hospital Is A Satisfied Patient. The Result Of A School Is A Student Who Has Learned Something And Puts It To Work Ten Years Later. Inside An Enterprise There Are Only Costs.
School
Years
Important
Knowledge Applied Is Productivity.
Productivity
Communism Is Evil. Its Driving Forces Are The Deadly Sins Of Envy And Hatred.
Evil
Envy
Hatred
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.
Government
Hands
Safety
Focus On Opportunities, Not Problems.
Opportunity
Focus
Problem
The Fruit Of Your Work Grows On Other People's Trees
People
Tree
Fruit
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.
Change
Teacher
Educational
The Monomaniac Is Unlikely To Succeed. Most Leave Only Their Bleached Bones In The Roadless Desert. But The Rest Of Us, With Our Multiple Interests Instead Of A Single Mission, Are Certain To Fail And Have No Impact At All.
Impact
Desert
Succeed
History Has Been Written Not By The Most Talented But By The Most Motivated.
Motivated
Has Beens
Written
Universities Won't Survive. The Future Is Outside The Traditional Campus, Outside The Traditional Classroom. Distance Learning Is Coming On Fast.
Distance
Classroom
Campus
Effective Innovations Start Small. They Are Not Grandiose. They Try To Do One Specific Thing.
Innovation
Trying
Grandiose
You Can't Manage Knowledge.knowledge Is Between Two Ears And Only Between Two Ears.
Learning
Knowledge
Two
Do First Things First, And Second Things Not At All.
Inspirational
Motivational
Second Chance
A Business Exists Because The Consumer Is Willing To Pay You His Money. You Run A Business To Satisfy The Consumer. That Isn't Marketing. That Goes Way Beyond Marketing.
Running
Business
Marketing
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
No Society Can Function As A Society, Unless It Gives The Individual Member Social Status And Function, And Unless The Decisive Social Power Is Legitimate.
Giving
Individual
Social
Strategy Is A Commodity, Execution Is An Art.
Art
Execution
Strategy
Business Has Only Two Basic Functions - Marketing And Innovation.
Success
Business
Creativity
A Manager Is Responsible For The Application And Performance Of Knowledge.
Work
Learning
Knowledge
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
Marketing Is Not Only Much Broader Than Selling, It Is Not A Specialized Activity At All. It Encompasses The Entire Business. It Is The Whole Business Seen From The Point Of View Of Its Final Result, That Is, From The Customer's Point Of View.
Business
Views
Marketing
Institutions Mistake Good Intentions For Objectives. They Say "health Care"; That's An Intention, Not An Objective.
Mistake
Care
Good Intentions
Capitalism Is Being Attacked Not Because It Is Inefficient Or Misgoverned But Because It Is Cynical. And Indeed A Society Based On The Assertion That Private Vices Become Public Benefits Cannot Endure, No Matter How Impeccable Its Logic, No Matter How Great Its Benefits.
Cynical
Vices
Benefits
A Fundamental Responsibility Of Leadership Is Make Sure That Everybody Knows The Mission, Understands It, Lives It.
Responsibility
Fundamentals
Missions
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
The Three Most Charismatic Leaders In This Century Inflicted More Suffering On The Human Race Than Almost Any Trio In History: Hitler, Stalin, And Mao. What Matters Is Not The Leader's Charisma. What Matters Is The Leader's Mission.
What Matters
Race
Leader
One Cannot Buy, Rent Or Hire More Time. The Supply Of Time Is Totally Inelastic. No Matter How High The Demand, The Supply Will Not Go Up. There Is No Price For It. Time Is Totally Perishable And Cannot Be Stored. Yesterday's Time Is Gone Forever, And Will Never Come Back. Time Is Always In Short Supply. There Is No Substitute For Time. Everything Requires Time. All Work Takes Place In, And Uses Up Time. Yet Most People Take For Granted This Unique, Irreplaceable And Necessary Resource.
Time
Unique
Yesterday
You Cannot Build Performance On Weaknesses. You Can Build Only On Strengths.
Weakness
Performances
The Greatest Change In Corporate Culture - And The Way Business Is Being Conducted - May Be The Accelerated Growth Of Relationships Based... On Partnership.
Art
War
Growth
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
Above All, Innovation Is Not Invention. It Is A Term Of Economics Rather Than Of Technology.
Technology
Innovation
Economics
Every Organization Has To Prepare For The Abandonment Of Everything It Does.
Business
Organization
Doe
Communication Is Always "propaganda." The Emitter Always Wants "to Get Something Across."
Communication
Want
Propaganda
There Are No Creeds In Mathematics.
Science
Mathematics
Creeds
The True Business Of Every Company Is To Make And Keep Customers.
Business
Company
Customers
Every Single Social And Global Issue Of Our Day Is A Business Opportunity In Disguise.
Opportunity
Issues
Social
An Organization Belongs On A Sick List When Promotion Becomes More Important To Its People Than Accomplishment Of Their Job They Are In. It Is Sick When It Is More Concerned With Avoiding Mistakes Than With Taking Risks, With Counteracting The Weaknesses Of Its Members Than With Building On Their Strength. But It Is Sick Also When "good Human Relations" Become More Important Than Performance And Achievement.
Jobs
Mistake
Organization
In The Managerial Organization, The Top People Sit In Judgment; In The Innovative Organization It Is Their Job To Encourage Ideas, No Matter How Unripe Or Crude.
Jobs
Organization
Ideas
The Ultimate Resource In Economic Development Is People. It Is People, Not Capital Or Raw Materials That Develop An Economy.
People
Raw Materials
Development
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 Area In Which The Executive First Encounters The Challenge Of Strength Is In Staffing. The Effective Executive Fills Positions And Promotes On The Basis Of What A Man Can Do. He Does Not Make Staffing Decisions To Minimize Weaknesses But To Maximize Strength."
Men
Decision
Challenges
True Marketing Starts...with The Customer, His Demographics, His Realities, His Needs, His Values. It Does Not Ask, "what Do We Want To Sell?" It Asks, "what Does The Customer Want To Buy?"
Reality
Marketing
Doe
Defending Yesterday Is Far More Risky Than Making Tomorrow.
Yesterday
Tomorrow
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.
Class
Giving
People
The Critical Question Is Not "how Can I Achieve?" But "what Can I Contribute?"
Achieve
Critical
The Need To Manage Oneself Is Creating A Revolution In Human Affairs.
Creating
Needs
Revolution
Business Enterprise Is An Organ Of Society. There Is Only One Valid Definition Of Business Purpose: To Create A Customer.
Purpose
Definitions
Enterprise
In Most Organizations, The Bottleneck Is At The Top Of The Bottle.
Organization
Bottles
Bottlenecks
Every Three Or Four Years I Pick A New Subject. It May Be Japanese Art; It May Be Economics. Three Years Of Study Are By No Means Enough To Master A Subject But They Are Enough To Understand It. So For More Than 60 Years I Have Kept Studying One Subject At A Time.
Art
Mean
Years
We Spend A Lot Of Time Teaching Leaders What To Do. We Don't Spend Enough Time Teaching Leaders What To Stop. Half The Leaders I Have Met Don't Need To Learn What To Do. They Need To Learn What To Stop
Teaching
Leader
Enough Time
I Would Hope That American Managers-indeed, Managers Worldwide-continue To Appreciate What I Have Been Saying Almost From Day One: That Management Is So Much More Than Exercising Rank And Privilege, That It Is Much More Than "making Deals." Management Affects People And Their Lives.
Exercise
People
Appreciate
The Computer, Being A Mechanical Moron, Can Handle Only Quantifiable Data.
Data
Computer
Moron
Society, Community, Family Are All Conserving Institutions. They Try To Maintain Stability And To Prevent, Or At Least 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.
Change
Organization
Community
Capital Formation Is Shifting From The Entrepreneur Who Invests In The Future To The Pension Trustee Who Invests In The Past.
Business
Past
Entrepreneur
Everything Must Degenerate Into Work If Anything Is To Happen.
Degenerates
Action
Happens
Leadership Is An Achievement Of Trust.
Achievement
[management] Has Authority Only As Long As It Performs.
Long
Management
Authority
When The Business Grows, The Person Who Founded It Is Incredibly Busy. Rapid Growth Puts An Enormous Strain On A Business. You Outgrow Your Production Facilities. You Outgrow Your Management Capabilities.
Growth
Management
Busy
To Make The Future Demands Courage. It Demands Work. But It Also Demands Faith.
Goal
Demand
Miracles Are Great, But They're So Damn Unpredictable.
Sports
Miracle
Damn
You Cannot Predict The Future, But You Can Create It.
I Find More And More Executives Less And Less Well Informed About The Outside World, If Only Because They Believe That The Data On The Computer Printouts Are Ipso Facto Information.
Believe
Data
World
By Themselves, Character And Integrity Do Not Accomplish Anything. But Their Absence Faults Everything Else.
Integrity
Character
Faults
Inside An Organization There Are Only Cost Centers. The Only Profit Center Is A Customer Whose Check Has Not Bounced.
Organization
Cost
Checks
Management Is About Human Beings. Its Task Is To Make People Capable Of Joint Performance, To Make Their Strengths Effective And Their Weaknesses Irrelevant.
People
Weakness
Tasks
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."
Keys
Effectiveness
Priorities
If A Business Is To Be Considered A Continuous Process, Instead Of A Series Of Disjointed Stop-and-go Events, Then The Economic Universe In Which A Business Operates-and All The Major Events Within It-must Have Rhyme, Rhythm, Or Reason.
Business
Events
Reason
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?"
Baby
Opportunity
Ideas
People In Any Organization, Including Bureaucrats And Politicians, Are Always Attached To The Obsolete; The Obsolescent; The Things That Should Have Worked But Didn't; The Things That Once Were Productive And No Longer Are.
Leadership
Should Have
Organization
My Greatest Strength As A Consultant Is To Be Ignorant And Ask A Few Questions.
Asking Questions
Ignorant Masses
Asking Too Many Questions
We All Have A Vast Number Of Areas In Which We Have No Talent Or Skill And Little Chance Of Becoming Even Mediocre. In Those Areas A Knowledge Workers Should Not Take On Work, Jobs And Assignments. It Takes Far More Energy To Improve From Incompetence To Mediocrity Than It Takes To Improve From First-rate Performance To Excellence.
Jobs
Skills
Numbers
The Healthier A New Venture And The Faster It Grows, The More Financial Feeding It Requires.
New Ventures
Financial
Feeding
Decision Making Is The Specific Executive Task.
Decision
Tasks
Decision Making
An Executive Should Be A Realist; And No One Is Less Realistic Than The Cynic.
Realist
Should
Cynic
The Organization Is, Above All, Social. It Is People.
Organization
People
Social
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
It Is Willingness Of People To Give Of Themselves Over And Above The Demands Of The Job That Distinguishes The Great From The Merely Adequate.
Jobs
People
Giving
Entrepreneurship Is Neither A Science Nor An Art. It Is A Practice.
Inspirational
Art
Practice
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.
Information
Economy
Born
Erroneous Assumptions Can Be Disastrous.
Thinking
Decision
Assumption
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.
Business
Power
Doe
The World Political System Is Till Based On The Concept Of The National Sovereign State. For The First Time Therefore, In Three Hundred Years Economy And Sovereignty Are Becoming Divorced From Each Other.
Years
Political
Three
Free Enterprise Cannot Be Justified As Being Good For Business. It Can Be Justified Only As Being Good For Society.
Justified
Be Good
Enterprise
If Something Fails Despite Being Carefully Planned, Carefully Designed, And Conscientiously Executed, That Failure Often Bespeaks Underlying Change And, With It, Opportunity.
Opportunity
Failing
Despite
Morale In An Organization Does Not Mean That "people Get Along Together"; The Test Is Performance Not Conformance.
Mean
Organization
People
Important Decisions Are Risky. They Should Be Controversial. Acclamation Means That Nobody Has Done The Homework.
Mean
Decision
Important
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
Keep The Boss Aware. Bosses, After All, Are Held Responsible By Their Own Bosses For The Performance Of Their Subordinates. They Must Be Able To Say: "i Know What Anne [or John] Is Trying To Do."
Boss
Trying
Able
Marketing And Innovation Produce Results; All The Rest Are Costs.
Innovation
Marketing
Cost
There Are Usually Half A Dozen Right Answers To What Needs To Be Done. Yet, Unless A Person Makes The Risky And Controversial Choice Of Only One, He Will Achieve Nothing.
Choices
Needs
Done
Spontaneity Is An Infinite Number Of Rehearsed Possibilities.
Numbers
Spontaneity
Infinite
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
Innovation Opportunities Do Not Come With The Tempest But With The Rustling Of The Breeze.
Opportunity
Innovation
Tempest
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
People Alone Of All The Resources Can Grow And Develop.
People
Resources
Grows
Absolute Size By Itself Is No Indicator Of Success And Achievement, Let Alone Of Managerial Competence. Being The Right Size Is.
Achievement
Size
Competence
The Most Effective Way To Manage Change Is To Create It.
Inspirational
Motivational
Change
A Man Should Never Be Appointed Into A Managerial Position If His Vision Focuses On People's Weaknesses Rather Than On Their Strengths.
Men
People
Focus
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
As A Rule We Perceive What We Expect To Perceive... The Unexpected Is Usually Not Received At All.
Unexpected
Perceive
What Is The Manager's Job? It Is To Direct The Resources And The Efforts Of The Business Toward Opportunities For Economically Significant Results. This Sounds Trite - And It Is. But Every Analysis Of Actual Allocation Of Resources And Efforts In Business That I Have Ever Seen Or Made Showed Clearly That The Bulk Of Time, Work, Attention, And Money First Goes To Problems Rather Than To Opportunities, And, Secondly, To Areas Where Even Extraordinarily Successful Performance Will Have Minimal Impact On Results.
Jobs
Successful
Opportunity
Company Cultures Are Like Country Cultures. Never Try To Change One. Try, Instead, To Work With What You've Got.
Change
Country
Trying
Business Exists To Supply Goods And Services To Customers And Economic Surplus To Society, Rather Than To Supply Jobs To Workers And Managers Or Even Dividends To Shareholders.
Jobs
Economic
Workers
Our Job In Life Is To Make A Positive Difference, Not Prove We're Right.
Jobs
Differences
Life Is
The Leader Of The Past Was A Person Who Knew How To Tell. The Leader Of The Future Will Be A Person Who Knows How To Ask.
Past
Leader
Inspire
Profit Is Not The Explanation, Cause, Or Rationale Of Business Behavior And Business Decisions, But The Test Of Their Validity.
Decision
Tests
Causes
The Talk You Hear About Adapting To Change Is Not Only Stupid, It's Dangerous. The Only Way You Can Manage Change Is To Create It.
Inspirational
Stupid
Way
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
One Can Either Work Or Meet. One Cannot Do Both At The Same Time.
Efficiency Is Doing Better What Is Already Being Done.
Teamwork
Effectiveness
Team Building
Successful Leaders Don't Start Out Asking, 'what Do I Want To Do?' They Ask, 'what Needs To Be Done?' Then They Ask, 'of Those Things That Would Make A Difference, Which Are Right For Me?'
Successful
Differences
Leader
Leaders Shouldn?t Attach Moral Significance To Their Ideas: Do That, And You Can?t Compromise.
Ideas
Leader
Moral
Education Gives You Neither Experience Nor Wisdom.
Giving
A Person Can Perform Only From Strength. One Cannot Build Performance On Weakness, Let Alone On Something One Cannot Do At All.
Weakness
Performances
Persons
Effective People Are Not Problem Minded; They're Opportunity-minded. They Feed Opportunities And Starve Problems. They Think Preventively.
Leadership
Opportunity
Thinking
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.
Children
Successful
New Ventures
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
Planning Is Actually Incompatible With An Entrepreneurial Society And Economy. Planning Is The Kiss Of Death Of Entrepreneurship.
Kissing
Planning
Entrepreneurship
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.
Generations
Lifetime
Economy
Do Not Measure Your Life By Your Goals But What You Are Doing To Achieve Them.
Motivation
Goal
Achieve
To Be Effective, Every Knowledge Worker, And Especially Every Executive, Therefore Needs To Dispose Of Time In Fairly Large Chunks. To Have Small Dribs And Drabs Of Time At His Disposal Will Not Be Sufficient Even If The Total Is An Impressive Number Of Hours.
Numbers
Risk
Knowledge Workers
Promotion Should Not Be More Important Than Accomplishment, Or Avoiding Instability More Important Than Taking The Right Risk.
Accomplishment
Risk
Important
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
Listening Is Not A Skill; It Is A Discipline.
Skills
Discipline
Listening
[t]hroughout The Ages To Be Educated Meant To Be Unproductive.... Our Word "school" - And Its Equivalent In All European Languages - Derives From A Greek Word Meaning "leisure.
School
Greek
Age
Our Most Important Education System Is In The Employees' Own Organization.
Organization
Important
Employee
It Is Commonly Believed That Innovations Create Changes - But Few Ever Do. Successful Innovations Exploit Changes That Have Already Happened.
Successful
Innovation
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.
Jobs
Organization
People
You Can't Manage What You Don't Measure.
Manage
There Are Just Two Questions To Ask To Attain Success In Business: First, "what Business Am I In?" Second, "how's Business?"
Two
Business Success
Firsts
In The Knowledge Economy Everyone Is A Volunteer, But We Have Trained Our Managers To Manage Conscripts.
Learning
Knowledge
Volunteer
Whenever Anything Is Being Accomplished, It Is Being Done, I Have Learned, By A Monomaniac With A Mission.
Innovation
Vision
Done
There's Nothing So Useless Than Executing A Task Efficiently When It Actually Never Should Have Been Executed At All.
Should Have
Tasks
Useless
Look At Government Programs For The Past Fifty Years. Every Single One - Except Warfare - Achieved The Exact Opposite Of Its Announced Goal.
Past
Opposites
Government
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
We Will Have To Learn To Lead People Rather Then To Contain Them.
People
We Have Tried To Substitute Mass For Purpose. We Have Tried To Regain Military Potency Of Defense By Making It Gigantic, Unwieldy, Complex. It Never Works.
Military
Defense
Purpose
Technology Is Not About Tools, It Deals With How Man Works.
Technology
Men
Tools
Trending Author
Bill Shankly
Frank Moore Colby
Sandra Brown
Beth Ditto
Rutherford B. Hayes
Malcolm Muggeridge
Category
Information