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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.
-Peter Drucker
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The Postwar [wwii] Gi

Peter Drucker
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.
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Rights
Important Events
America
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If You're Not Living Life On The Edge, You're Taking Up Too Much Space. The Best Way To Predict The Future Is To Create It.
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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.
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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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I'm Better About Things Than About People. I'm More Interested In People, But I'm Better At Ideas.
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Your First And Foremost Job As A Leader Is To Take Charge Of Your Own Energy And Then Help To Orchestrate The Energy Of Those Around You.
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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.
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It Takes Far Less Energy To Move From First-rate Performance To Excellence Than It Does To Move From Incompetence To Mediocrity.
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The Most Serious Mistakes Are Not Being Made As A Result Of Wrong Answers. The True Dangerous Thing Is Asking The Wrong Question.
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Strategy Is A Commodity, Execution Is An Art.
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Management Must Take The Lead In Making Obsolete Its Own Products And Services Rather Than Waiting For A Competitor To Do So.
Waiting
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Obsolete
Knowledge Applied Is Productivity.
Productivity
If A Government Commission Had Worked On The Horse, You Would Have The First Horse That Could Operate Its Knee Joint In Both Directions. The Trouble Is It Couldn't Have Stood Up.
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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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Follow Effective Action With Quiet Reflection. From The Quiet Reflection Will Come Even More Effective Action.
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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.
Education
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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'.
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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.
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Our Job In Life Is To Make A Positive Difference, Not Prove We're Right.
Jobs
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Results Are Obtained By Exploiting Opportunities, Not By Solving Problems.
Appreciation
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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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The Large Organization Has To Learn To Innovate, Or It Won't Survive.
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Culture Eats Christianity For Breakfast.
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The First Step Toward Making The Worker Achieving Is To Make Work Productive.
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There's Nothing So Useless Than Executing A Task Efficiently When It Actually Never Should Have Been Executed At All.
Should Have
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Institutions Mistake Good Intentions For Objectives. They Say "health Care"; That's An Intention, Not An Objective.
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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.
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Until We Can Manage Time, We Can Manage Nothing Else.
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Knowledge Has Become The Key Economic Resource And The Dominant-and Perhaps Even The Only-source Of Competitive Advantage.
Keys
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The Computer, Being A Mechanical Moron, Can Handle Only Quantifiable Data.
Data
Computer
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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When Henry Ford Said, "the Customer Can Have A Car In Any Color As Long As It's Black," He Was Not Joking.
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One Reason For The Tremendous Increase In Health-care Costs In The U.s. Is Managerial Neglect Of The "hotel Services" By The People Who Dominate The Hospital, Such As Doctors And Nurses.
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A Person Can Perform Only From Strength. One Cannot Build Performance On Weakness, Let Alone On Something One Cannot Do At All.
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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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Every Organization Has To Prepare For The Abandonment Of Everything It Does.
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Adequacy Is The Enemy Of Excellence.
Enemy
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The Pertinent Question Is Not How To Do Things Right - But How To Find The Right Things To Do, And To Concentrate Resources And Efforts On Them.
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Company Cultures Are Like Country Cultures. Never Try To Change One. Try, Instead, To Work With What You've Got.
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One Can Either Work Or Meet. One Cannot Do Both At The Same Time.
What We Need Is An Entrepreneurial Society In Which Innovation And Entrepreneurship Are Normal, Steady And Continuous.
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We Will Have To Learn To Lead People Rather Then To Contain Them.
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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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Any Organisation Develops People; It Either Forms Them Or Deforms Them.
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I Have Been Saying For Many Years That We Are Using The Word 'guru' Only Because 'charlatan' Is Too Long To Fit Into A Headline.
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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.
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If You Want To Know What The Future Is, Be Part Of Its Development.
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That Knowledge Has Become The Resource, Rather Than A Resource, Is What Makes Our Society "post-capitalist.
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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.
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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.
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An Executive Should Be A Realist; And No One Is Less Realistic Than The Cynic.
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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.
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Political Freedom Is Neither Easy Nor Automatic, Neither Pleasant Nor Secure. It Is The Responsibility Of The Individual For The Decisions Of Society As If They Were His Own Decisions-as In Moral Truth And Accountability They Are.
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Miracles Are Great, But They're So Damn Unpredictable.
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Because Its Purpose Is To Create A Customer, The Business Enterprise Has Two - And Only These Two — Basic Functions: Marketing And Innovation. Marketing And Innovation Produce Results; All The Rest Are 'costs'.
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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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The Greatest Change In Corporate Culture - And The Way Business Is Being Conducted - May Be The Accelerated Growth Of Relationships Based... On Partnership.
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Not To Innovate Is The Single Largest Reason For The Decline Of Existing Organizations. Not To Know How To Manage Is The Single Largest Reason For The Failure Of New Ventures.
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Making Changes To Better Appeal To Customer Is Innovation.
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If General Perception Changes From Seeing The Glass As 'half-full' To Seeing It As 'half Empty' There Are Major Innovative Opportunities.
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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.
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The Worker's Effectiveness Is Determined Largely By The Way He Is Being Managed.
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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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All Good Strategy Eventually Degenerates Into Work.
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The Problem In My Life And Other People's Lives Is Not The Absence Of Knowing What To Do But The Absence Of Doing It.
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An Effective Executive Builds On Strengths - Their Own Strengths, The Strengths Of Superiors, Colleagues, Subordinates, And On The Strength Of The Situation.
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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.
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Businesses Are Not Paid To Reform Customers. They Are Paid To Satisfy Customers.
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The Experience Of The Human Race Indicates Strongly That The Only Person In Abundant Supply Is The Universal Incompetent.
Race
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The Purpose Of An Organization Is To Enable Ordinary Humans Beings To Do Extraordinary Things.
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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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Management By Objective Works - If You Know The Objectives. Ninety Percent Of The Time You Don't.
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The Aim Of Marketing Is To Make Selling Superfluous.
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The Essence Of Management Is To Make Knowledge Productive.
Essence
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Productive
No One Learns As Much About A Subject As One Who Is Forced To Teach It.
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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.
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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
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Most Innovators Are Successful To The Extent To Which They Define Risks And Confine Them.
Successful
Risk
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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.
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Spontaneity Is An Infinite Number Of Rehearsed Possibilities.
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Infinite
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
Communication Always Makes Demands. It Always Demands That The Recipient Become Somebody, Do Something, Believe Something. It Always Appeals To Motivation.
Motivation
Believe
Communication
A Manager Sets Objectives - A Manager Organizes - A Manager Motivates And Communicates - A Manager, By Establishing Yardsticks, Measures - A Manager Develops People.
People
Yardsticks
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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.
Country
Mean
Socialist Countries
Yet There Is Nothing More Dangerous Than To Be Premature In Exploiting A Change In Perception.
Perception
Fragility
Dangerous
The Real Development I've Seen Of People In Organizations, Especially In Big Ones, Comes From Their Being Volunteers In A Nonprofit Organization - Where You Have Responsibility, You See Results, And You Quickly Learn What Your Values Are. There Is No Better Way To Understand Your Strengths And Discover Where You Belong Than To Volunteer In A Nonprofit. That Is Probably The Great Opportunity For The Social Sector - And Especially In Its Relationship To Business.
Business
Real
Responsibility
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
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 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
Objectives Are Not Commands; They Are Commitments.
Commitment
Command
Objectives
Business Enterprise Is An Organ Of Society. There Is Only One Valid Definition Of Business Purpose: To Create A Customer.
Purpose
Definitions
Enterprise
[entrepreneurship] Is By No Means Hunch Or Gamble. But It Also Is Not Precisely Science. Rather, It Is Judgment.
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Judgment
Entrepreneurship
There Are No Creeds In Mathematics.
Science
Mathematics
Creeds
Balance Sheets Are Meaningless. Our Accounting Systems Are Still Based On The Assumption That 80% Of Costs Are Manual Labor.
Balance
Cost
Assumption
Economists Think The Poor Need Them To Tell Them That They Are Poor.
Thinking
Political
Needs
What The Customer Buys And Considers Value Is Never A Product. It Is Always Utility, That Is, What A Product Or A Service Does For The Customer.
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Customers
Utility
The Task Of Leadership Is To Create An Alignment Of Strengths So Strong That It Makes The System's Weaknesses Irrelevant.
Strong
Weakness
Tasks
There Is A Point Of Complexity Beyond Which A Business Is No Longer Manageable.
Complexity
Manageable
Listening (the First Competence Of Leadership) Is Not A Skill, It Is A Discipline. All You Have To Do Is Keep Your Mouth Shut.
Skills
Discipline
Listening
The Only Definition Of A Leader Is Someone Who Has Followers.
Leader
Followers
Definitions
That People Even In Well Paid Jobs Choose Ever Earlier Retirement Is A Severe Indictment Of Our Organizations - Not Just Business, But Government Service, The Universities. These People Don't Find Their Jobs Interesting.
Retirement
Jobs
Organization
Business, That's Easily Defined - It's Other People's Money.
Money
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We Do Not Need More Laws . No Country Suffers From A Shortage Of Laws. We Need A New Model .
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Sören Kierkegaard Has Another Answer: Human Existence Is Possible As Existence Not In Despair, As Existence Not In Tragedy; It Is Possible As Existence In Faith... Faith Is The Belief That In God The Impossible Is Possible, That In Him Time And Eternity Are One, That Both Life And Death Are Meaningful.
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Life And Death
Tragedy
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
[management] Has Authority Only As Long As It Performs.
Long
Management
Authority
Do Not Believe That It Is Very Much Of An Advance To Do The Unnecessary Three Times As Fast.
Believe
Three
Egomaniacs
Erroneous Assumptions Can Be Disastrous.
Thinking
Decision
Assumption
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
The Great Mystery Isn't That People Do Things Badly But That They Occasionally Do A Few Things Well. The Only Thing That Is Universal Is Incompetence. Strength Is Always Specific! Nobody Ever Commented, For Example, That The Great Violinist Jascha Heifetz Probably Couldn't Play The Trumpet Very Well.
Play
People
Focus
Managers Are The Basic And Scarcest Resource Of Any Business Enterprise.
Resources
Enterprise
Managers
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
Decision Making Is The Specific Executive Task.
Decision
Tasks
Decision Making
Tomorrow Everybody - Or Practically Everybody - Will Have Had The Education Of The Upper Class Of Yesterday, And Will Expect Equivalent Opportunities. That Is Why We Face The Problem Of Making Every Kind Of Job Meaningful And Capable Of Satisfying Every Educated Man.
Meaningful
Jobs
Opportunity
[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
Promotion Should Not Be More Important Than Accomplishment, Or Avoiding Instability More Important Than Taking The Right Risk.
Accomplishment
Risk
Important
The Corporation Is The "master", The Employee Is The "servant". Because The Corporation Owns The Means Of Production Without Which The Employee Could Not Make A Living, The Employee Needs The Corporation More Than Vice Versa.
Business
Work
Mean
There Is A Point At Which A Transformation Has To Take Place.
Transformation
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
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
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
The Effective Executive Knows That It Is Easier To Raise The Performance Of One Leader Than It Is To Raise The Performance Of A Whole Mass. She Therefore Makes Sure She Puts Into The Leadership Position, Into The Standard-setting, The Performance-making Position The Person Who Has The Strength To Do The Outstanding Pacesetting Job. This Always Requires Focus On The One Strength Of A Person And Dismissal Of Weaknesses As Irrelevant Unless They Hamper The Full Deployment Of The Available Strength.
Leadership
Jobs
Focus
An Employer Has No Business With A Man's Personality... The Task Is Not To Change Personality, But To Enable A Person To Achieve And To Perform.
Men
Personality
Tasks
Effective Innovations Start Small. They Are Not Grandiose. They Try To Do One Specific Thing.
Innovation
Trying
Grandiose
The Critical Question Is Not "how Can I Achieve?" But "what Can I Contribute?"
Achieve
Critical
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
As To The Idea That Advertising Motivates People, Remember The Edsel.
Business
Ideas
People
There Is A Great Need For A New Approach, New Methods And New Tools In Teaching, Man's Oldest And Most Reactionary Craft. There Is Great Need For A Rapid Increase In The Productivity Of Learning. There Is, Above All, Great Need For Methods That Will Make The Teacher Effective And Multiply His Or Her Efforts And Competence. Teaching Is, In Fact, The Only Traditional Craft In Which We Have Not Yet Fashioned The Tools That Make An Ordinary Person Capable Of Superior Performance. In This Respect, Teaching Is Far Behind Medicine, Where The Tools First Became Available A Century Or More Ago.
Teacher
Teaching
Men
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
Most Of What We Call Management Consists Of Making It Difficult For People To Get Their Work Done.
Leadership
Wise
Funny Inspirational
Work Is An Extension Of Personality. It Is Achievement. It Is One Of The Ways In Which A Person Defines Himself, Measures His Worth, And His Humanity.
Personality
Achievement
Humanity
The Purpose Of A Business Is To Create A Customer.
Motivational
Business
Loyal Customers
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
Replace Your Pursuit Of Success With The Pursuit Of Contribution.
Pursuit
Contribution
If You Have Too Many Problems, Maybe You Should Get Out Of Business. There Is No Law That Says A Company Must Last Forever.
Business
Law
Forever
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.
Teaching
Thinking
People
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
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
Capital Formation Is Shifting From The Entrepreneur Who Invests In The Future To The Pension Trustee Who Invests In The Past.
Business
Past
Entrepreneur
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
Leaders Grow; They Are Not Made.
Leadership
Leader
Made
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 Individual Is The Central, Rarest, Most Precious Capital Resource Of Our Society.
Individuality
Society
Resources
Every Success Creates New Opportunities. So Does Every Failure.
Opportunity
Doe
New Opportunity
The New Information Technology... Internet And E-mail... Have Practically Eliminated The Physical Costs Of Communications.
Business
Communication
Technology
Meetings Are By Definition A Concession To Deficient Organization. For One Either Meets Or One Works.
Business
Organization
Definitions
If You Want It, Measure It. If You Can't Measure It, Forget It.
Leadership
Want
Forget
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
Use Feedback Analysis To Identify Your Strengths. Then Go To Work On Improving Your Strengths. Identify And Eliminate Bad Habits That Hinder The Full Development Of Your Strengths. Figure Out What You Should Do And Do It. Finally, Decide What You Should Not Do.
Analysis
Use
Development
The Only Things That Evolve By Themselves In An Organization Are Disorder, Friction And Malperformance.
Inspirational
Business
Organization
Schools Will Change More In The Next 30 Years Than They Have Since The Invention Of The Printed Book.
Morning
Book
School
Of Those Things That Would Make A Difference, Which Are Right For Me?
Differences
Making A Difference
It Is Better To Pick The Wrong Priority Than None At All.
Priorities
Picks
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
The New Always Looks So Puny-so Unpromising-next To The Reality Of The Massive, Ongoing Business.
Reality
Looks
Ongoing
Business Has Only Two Basic Functions - Marketing And Innovation.
Success
Business
Creativity
Providing More Desirable Products, Services, And Customer Experiences Is Vital To The Continued Existence Of Any Business. And That Is Innovation.
Innovation
Existence
Customer Experience
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
The Most Probable Assumption Is That No Currently Working 'business Theory' Will Be Valid 10 Years Hence.
Years
Assumption
Theory
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.
Business
Organization
Challenges
Organizations Are No Longer Built On Force, But On Trust.
Organization
Force
Built
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.
Teacher
Retirement
Teaching
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
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
The Fruit Of Your Work Grows On Other People's Trees
People
Tree
Fruit
Succession Planning Often Results In The Selection Of A Weaker Representation Of Yourself.
Planning
Results
Succession
It's Amazing How Many Things Busy People Are Doing That Never Will Be Missed.
People
Busy
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
We Have Only One Alternative: Either To Build A Functioning Industrial Society Or See Freedom Itself Disappear In Anarchy And Tyranny.
Alternatives
Anarchy
Disappear
The Successful Person Places More Attention On Doing The Right Thing Rather Than Doing Things Right.
Success
Inspiration
Attention
Economists Talk About Profit Motive, But Nothing Motivates Modern Man More Than A Chance To Avoid Taxes!
Men
Chance
Modern
Free Enterprise Cannot Be Justified As Being Good For Business. It Can Be Justified Only As Being Good For Society.
Justified
Be Good
Enterprise
To Satisfy The Customer Is The Mission And Purpose Of Every Business.
Purpose
Missions
Customers
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.
Teaching
Skills
Forgotten
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
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
The Need To Manage Oneself Is Creating A Revolution In Human Affairs.
Creating
Needs
Revolution
Increasingly, Politics Is Not About "who Gets What, When, How" But About Values, Each Of Them Considered To Be Absolute. Politics Is About "the Right To Life"...it Is About The Environment. It Is About Gaining Equality For Groups Alleged To Be Oppressed...none Of These Issues Is Economic. All Are Fundamentally Moral.
Issues
Groups
Moral
Knowledge Is Power, Which Is Why People Who Had It In The Past Often Tried To Make A Secret Of It. In Post-capitalism, Power Comes From Transmitting Information To Make It Productive, Not From Hiding It.
Communication
Information
Hiding
It Is Commonly Believed That Innovations Create Changes - But Few Ever Do. Successful Innovations Exploit Changes That Have Already Happened.
Successful
Innovation
Happened
Great Wisdom Not Applied To Action And Behavior Is Meaningless Data.
Data
Marketing
Action
Systematic Change Requires A Willingness To Look On Change As An Opportunity.
Opportunity
Looks
Systematic
In Most Organizations, The Bottleneck Is At The Top Of The Bottle.
Organization
Bottles
Bottlenecks
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
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
Managing Innovation Will Increasingly Become A Challenge To Management, And Especially To Top Management, And A Touchstone Of Its Competence.
Top Management
Challenges
Innovation
Unless We Realize That The Essence Of Nazism Is Also An Attempt To Solve A Universal Problem Of Western Civilization - That Of The Industrial Society - And That The Basic Principles On Which The Nazis Base This Attempt Are Also In No Way Confined To Germany, We Do Not Know What We Fight For Or What We Fight Against... The War Is Being Fought For The Structure Of Industrial Society - Its Basic Principles, Its Purposes, And Its Institutions.
War
Fighting
Essence
Profit Is Not The Explanation, Cause, Or Rationale Of Business Behavior And Business Decisions, But The Test Of Their Validity.
Decision
Tests
Causes
The Better A Man Is The More Mistakes Will He Make – For The More New Things He Will Try.
Mistake
Failure
Men
Most Of What You Hear About Entrepreneurshi P Is All Wrong. It's Not Magic; It's Not Mysterious; And It Has Nothing To Do With Genes. It's A Discipline And, Like Any Discipline, It Can Be Learned.
Discipline
Magic
Mysterious
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
Mission Defines Strategy, And Strategy Defines Structure.
Strategy
Structure
Missions
An Employer Has No Business With A Man's Personality. Employment Is A Specific Contract Calling For A Specific Performance... Any Attempt To Go Beyond That Is Usurpation. It Is Immoral As Well As An Illegal Intrusion Of Privacy. It Is Abuse Of Power. An Employee Owes No "loyalty," He Owes No "love" And No "attitudes" - He Owes Performance And Nothing Else. .... The Task Is Not To Change Personality, But To Enable A Person To Achieve And To Perform.
Loyalty
Attitude
Men
The Dilemma Of Modern Society: The Conflict Between The Need For Capital Formation At A High Rate And The Popular Condemnation Of Interest And Dividends As "unearned Income" And "capitalist," If Not As Sinful And Wicked.
Wicked
Income
Needs
Planning Is Actually Incompatible With An Entrepreneurial Society And Economy. Planning Is The Kiss Of Death Of Entrepreneurship.
Kissing
Planning
Entrepreneurship
Results Is All That Separates One Company From Another.
Results
Company
A Manager Is Responsible For The Application And Performance Of Knowledge.
Work
Learning
Knowledge
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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