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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

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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.

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Results Is All That Separates One Company From Another.

Business Has Only Two Basic Functions - Marketing And Innovation.

Providing More Desirable Products, Services, And Customer Experiences Is Vital To The Continued Existence Of Any Business. And That Is Innovation.

Customer Experience

Company Cultures Are Like Country Cultures. Never Try To Change One. Try, Instead, To Work With What You've Got.

The Subordinate's Job Is Not To Reform Or Reeducate The Boss, Not To Make Him Conform To What The Business Schools Or The Management Book Say Bosses Should Be Like. It Is To Enable A Particular Boss To Perform As A Unique Individual.

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.

Capital Formation Is Shifting From The Entrepreneur Who Invests In The Future To The Pension Trustee Who Invests In The Past.

There Is The General Belief That The Corporation Income Tax Is A Tax On The "rich" And On The "fat Cats." But With Pension Funds Owning 30% Of American Large Business-and Soon To Own 50%-the Corporation Income Tax, In Effect, Eases The Load On Those In Top Income Brackets And Penalizes The Beneficiaries Of Pension Funds.

The Knowledge We Now Consider Knowledge Proves Itself In Action. What We Now Mean By Knowledge Is Information Effective In Action, Information Focused On Results. Results Are Outside The Person, In Society And Economy, Or In The Advancement Of Knowledge Itself. To Accomplish Anything This Knowledge Has To Be Highly Specialized.

Knowledge Is The Source Of Wealth. Applied To Tasks We Already Know, It Becomes Productivity. Applied To Tasks That Are New, It Becomes Innovation.

The Entrepreneur Always Searches For Change, Responds To It, And Exploits It As An Opportunity.

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.

People Alone Of All The Resources Can Grow And Develop.

The Enterprise, By Definition, Must Be Capable Of Producing More Or Better Than All The Resources That Comprise It.

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.

No Single Piece Of Macroeconomic Advice Given By The Experts To Their Government Has Ever Had The Results Predicted.

Profit Is Not The Explanation, Cause, Or Rationale Of Business Behavior And Business Decisions, But The Test Of Their Validity.

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.

Brilliant Men Are Often Strikingly Ineffectual. They Fail To Realize That The Brilliant Insight Is Not By Itself Achievement. They Never Have Learned That Insights Become Effectiveness Only Through Hard Systematic Work.

Spontaneity Is An Infinite Number Of Rehearsed Possibilities.

Mother Teresa's Numerical Results Were Not Her Greatest Contribution. Instead, She Made The World-and Especially India-conscious Of Compassion.

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.

It's Amazing How Many Things Busy People Are Doing That Never Will Be Missed.

To Arrive At The Definition Of The Problem He Must Begin By Finding The 'critical Factor'. This Is The Element (or Elements) In The Situation That Has To Be Changed Before Anything Else Can Be Changed, Moved, Acted Upon.

One Can Either Work Or Meet. One Cannot Do Both At The Same Time.

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.

The Most Important Contribution Management Needs To Make In The 21st Century Is ... To Increase The Productivity Of Knowledge Work And The Knowledge Worker

Knowledge Workers

Our Most Important Education System Is In The Employees' Own Organization.

Management By Objective Works - If You Know The Objectives. Ninety Percent Of The Time You Don't.

Tomorrow Always Arrives. It Is Always Different. And Even The Mightiest Company Is In Trouble If It Has Not Worked On The Future. Being Surprised By What Happens Is A Risk That Even The Largest And Richest Company Cannot Afford, And Even The Smallest Business Need Not Run.

One Does Not Start With Facts. One Starts With Opinions.

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.

Work Is A Process, And Any Process Needs To Be Controlled. To Make Work Productive, Therefore, Requires Building The Appropriate Controls Into The Process Of Work.

The Best Plan Is Only A Plan... Unless It Degerates Into Work.

Some Of The Best Business And Nonprofit Ceos I've Worked With Over A Sixty-five-year Consulting Career Were Not Stereotypical Leaders. They Were All Over The Map In Terms Of Their Personalities, Attitudes, Values, Strengths, And Weaknesses.

Management And Entrepreneurship Are Only Two Different Dimensions Of The Same Task. An Entrepreneur Who Does Not Learn How To Manage Will Not Last Long. A Management That Does Not Learn To Innovate Will Not Last Long.

Any Organisation Develops People; It Either Forms Them Or Deforms Them.

People Who Don't Take Risks Generally Make About Two Big Mistakes A Year. People Who Do Take Risks Generally Make About Two Big Mistakes A Year.

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.

What's Measured Improves

The Computer Is A Moron.

The One To Distrust Is The Person Who Never Makes A Mistake, Never Commits A Blunder, Never Fails In What He Tries To Do. Either He Is A Phony, Or He Stays With The Safe, The Tried And The Trivial.

All Earlier Pluralist Societies Destroyed Themselves Because No One Took Care Of The Common Good. They Abounded In Communities But Could Not Sustain Community, Let Alone Create It.

What Managers Decide To Stop Doing Is Often More Important Than What They Decide To Do.

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.

To Make Knowledge Productive, We Will Have To Learn To See Both Forest And Tree. We Will Have To Learn To Connect.

The Computer, Being A Mechanical Moron, Can Handle Only Quantifiable Data.

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.

Unless A Decision Has Degenerated Into Work, It Is Not A Decision; It Is At Best A Good Intention.

Good Intentions

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.

Focus On Opportunities, Not Problems.

In Todays Economy, The Most Important Resource Is No Longer Labor, Capital Or Land; It Is Knowledge

The Only Real Difference Between One Organization And Another Is The Performance Of Its People.

Plans Are Only Good Intentions Unless They Immediately Degenerate Into Hard Work.

Business Enterprise Is An Organ Of Society. There Is Only One Valid Definition Of Business Purpose: To Create A Customer.

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.

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.

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.

Here I Am, Fifty-eight, And I Still Don't Know What I'm Going To Be When I Grow Up.

Efficiency Is Doing Better What Is Already Being Done.

[entrepreneurship] Is By No Means Hunch Or Gamble. But It Also Is Not Precisely Science. Rather, It Is Judgment.

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Shoes Are Real. Money Is An End Result.

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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.

When It Rains Manna From Heaven, Some People Put Up An Umbrella. Others Reach For A Big Spoon.

Every Organization Has To Prepare For The Abandonment Of Everything It Does.

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.

No Organization Can Depend On Genius; The Supply Is Always Scarce And Unreliable. It Is The Test Of An Organization To Make Ordinary People Perform Better Than They Seem Capable Of, To Bring Out Whatever Strength There Is In Its Members, And To Use Each Person's Strength To Help All The Other Members Perform.

Every Enterprise Is Learning And Teaching Institution. Training And Development Must Be Built Into It On All Levels, Training And Development That Never Stop.

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.

Schools Will Change More In The Next 30 Years Than They Have Since The Invention Of The Printed Book.

No One Learns As Much About A Subject As One Who Is Forced To Teach It.

Quality Of Character Doesn't Make A Leader, But The Lack Of It Flaws The Entire Process.

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."

People Who Need Certainty Are Unlikely To Make Good Entrepreneurs.

Unless Commitment Is Made, There Are Only Promises And Hopes... But No Plans.

Keeping Promises

The Paradox Of The Prophet: His Very Success Is His Failure. The Prophet Whose Time Has Come No Longer Shocks; He Entertains.

Organizationally What Is Required - And Evolving - Is Systems Management.

[management] Has Authority Only As Long As It Performs.

They Wrongly Believe That Good Intentions Move Mountains. Bulldozers Move Mountains. But There Are Exceptions.

There Is Every Indication That The Period Ahead Will Be An Innovative One, One Of Rapid Change In Technology , Society , Economy , And Institutions .

You Cannot Predict The Future, But You Can Create It.

To Improve Communications, Work Not On The Utter, But The Recipient.

One Either Meets Or One Works.

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.

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."

Working With People Is Difficult, But Not Impossible.

Technology Is Not About Tools, It Deals With How Man Works.

Great Wisdom Not Applied To Action And Behavior Is Meaningless Data.

The 1st Question The Effective Decision-maker Asks Is: 'is This A Generic Situation Or An Exception?'

To Make The Future Demands Courage. It Demands Work. But It Also Demands Faith.

A Fundamental Responsibility Of Leadership Is Make Sure That Everybody Knows The Mission, Understands It, Lives It.

Most Discussions Of Decision Making Assume That Only Senior Executives Make Decisions Or That Only Senior Executives' Decisions Matter. This Is A Dangerous Mistake.

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.

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.

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.

If General Perception Changes From Seeing The Glass As 'half-full' To Seeing It As 'half Empty' There Are Major Innovative Opportunities.

Mission Defines Strategy, And Strategy Defines Structure.

Customers Pay Only For What Is Of Use To Them And Gives Them Value. Nothing Else Constitutes Quality.

A Person Can Perform Only From Strength. One Cannot Build Performance On Weakness, Let Alone On Something One Cannot Do At All.

Nothing Else, Perhaps, Distinguishes Effective Executives As Much As Their Tender Loving Care Of Time.

Time Management

The Society Of Organizations Is New-only Seventy Years Ago Employees Were A Small Minority In Every Society.

Meetings Are A Symptom Of Bad Organization. The Fewer Meetings The Better.

The Ultimate Resource In Economic Development Is People. It Is People, Not Capital Or Raw Materials That Develop An Economy.

The Most Valuable Assets Of A 20th-century Company Were Its Production Equipment. The Most Valuable Assets Of A 21st-century Institution, Whether Business Or Nonbusiness, Will Be Its Knowledge, Workers, And Their Productivity.

Knowledge Workers

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.

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.

Managers Are The Basic And Scarcest Resource Of Any Business Enterprise.

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.

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.

The Better A Man Is The More Mistakes Will He Make – For The More New Things He Will Try.

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.

You Must Accept That If The Computer Is A Tool, It Is The Job Of Tool User To Know What To Use It For.

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.

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."

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.

Efficiency, Which Is Doing Things Right, Is Irrelevant Until You Work On The Right Things.

There Are No Creeds In Mathematics.

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.

The Successful Person Places More Attention On Doing The Right Thing Rather Than Doing Things Right.

There Are Two Types Of People In The Business Community: Those Who Produce Results And Those Who Give You Reasons Why They Didn't.

If You Want To Predict The Future Create It.

We Know Nothing About Motivation. All We Can Do Is Write Books About It.

One Has To Make A Decision When A Condition Is Likely To Degenerate If Nothing Is Done.

Marketing Is The Distinguishing, Unique Function Of The Business.

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.

The True Business Of Every Company Is To Make And Keep Customers.

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.

Marketing And Innovation Produce Results; All The Rest Are Costs.

It Takes Far Less Energy To Move From First-rate Performance To Excellence Than It Does To Move From Incompetence To Mediocrity.

Elephants Have A Hard Time Adapting. Cockroaches Outlive Everything.

Entrepreneurship Is “risky” Mainly Because So Few Of The So-called Entrepreneurs Know What They Are Doing.

Entrepreneurship

There Is Nothing So Useless As Doing Efficiently That Which Should Not Be Done At All.

Nothing Is Less Productive Than To Make More Efficient What Should Not Be Done At All.

Procrastination

Productive Life

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.

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.

It Is Easier To Raise The Performance Of One Leader Than It Is To Raise The Performance Of A Whole Mass.

Decisions Exist Only In The Present.

The Purpose Of Information Is Not Knowledge. It Is Being Able To Take The Right Action.

Executives Owe It To The Organization And To Their Fellow Workers Not To Tolerate Nonperforming Individuals In Important Jobs.

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.

The Enterprise Can Fulfill Its Human And Social Functions Only If It Prospers As A Business.

The Leader Sees Leadership As Responsibility Rather Than As Rank And Privilege.

Everything Must Degenerate Into Work If Anything Is To Happen.

The Purpose Of An Organization Is To Enable Ordinary Humans Beings To Do Extraordinary Things.

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.

Every Few Hundred Years In Western History There Occurs A Sharp Transformation. Within A Few Short Decades, Society - Its Worldview, Its Basic Values, Its Social And Political Structures, Its Art, Its Key Institutions - Rearranges Itself. We Are Currently Living Through Such A Time.

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.

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.'

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.

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?"

If Something Fails Despite Being Carefully Planned, Carefully Designed, And Conscientiously Executed, That Failure Often Bespeaks Underlying Change And, With It, Opportunity.

Most Innovators Are Successful To The Extent To Which They Define Risks And Confine Them.

There Is A Point Of Complexity Beyond Which A Business Is No Longer Manageable.

We Do Not Need More Laws . No Country Suffers From A Shortage Of Laws. We Need A New Model .

Trying To Predict The Future Is Like Trying To Drive Down A Country Road At Night With No Lights While Looking Out The Back Window.

The Most Serious Mistakes Are Not Being Made As A Result Of Wrong Answers. The True Dangerous Thing Is Asking The Wrong Question.

The Aim Of Marketing Is To Make Selling Superfluous.

Leadership Is Defined By Results Not Attributes.

A Superior Who Works On His Own Development Sets An Almost Irresistible Example.

Teaching 23-year-olds In An Mba Programme Strikes Me As Largely A Waste Of Time. They Lack The Background Of Experience. You Can Teach Them Skills - Accounting And What Have You - But You Can't Teach Them Management.

Systematic Change Requires A Willingness To Look On Change As An Opportunity.

The Tool User, Provided The Tool Is Made Well, Need Not, And Indeed Should Not, Know Anything About The Tool.

The Success And Ultimately The Survival Of Every Business, Large Or Small, Depends In The Last Analysis On Its Ability To Develop People. This Ability Is Not Measured By Any Of Our Conventional Yardsticks Of Economic Success; Yet, Is The Final Measurement.

Replace Your Pursuit Of Success With The Pursuit Of Contribution.

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.

Successful Careers Are Not Planned. They Develop When People Are Prepared For Opportunities Because They Know Their Strengths, Their Method Of Work, And Their Values. Knowing Where One Belongs Can Transform An Ordinary Person - Hardworking And Competent But Otherwise Mediocre - Into An Outstanding Performer.

As A Rule We Perceive What We Expect To Perceive... The Unexpected Is Usually Not Received At All.

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.

Growth That Adds Volume Without Improving Productivity Is Fat. Growth That Diminishes Productivity Is Cancer.

The Manager Is A Servant. His Master Is The Institution He Manages And His First Responsibility Must Therefore Be To It.

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.

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.

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.

A Manager Is Responsible For The Application And Performance Of Knowledge.

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.

The Most Probable Assumption Is That No Currently Working 'business Theory' Will Be Valid 10 Years Hence.

An Effective Executive Builds On Strengths - Their Own Strengths, The Strengths Of Superiors, Colleagues, Subordinates, And On The Strength Of The Situation.

When A Subject Becomes Totally Obsolete We Make It A Required Course.

Inside An Organization There Are Only Cost Centers. The Only Profit Center Is A Customer Whose Check Has Not Bounced.

What We Need Is An Entrepreneurial Society In Which Innovation And Entrepreneurship Are Normal, Steady And Continuous.

Knowledge Has To Be Improved, Challenged, And Increased Constantly, Or It Vanishes.

There Is An Unbroken Chain Of Opposition To The Introduction Of Economic Freedom And To The Capitalist Autonomy Of The Economic Sphere... In Every Case The Opposition Could Only Be Overcome - Peacefully Or By Force - Because Of The Promise Of Capitalism To Establish Equality... That This Promise Was An Illusion We All Know.

Most Of What We Call Management Consists Of Making It Difficult For People To Get Their Work Done.

Funny Inspirational

Leadership Is All Hype. We've Had Three Great Leaders In This Century-hitler, Stalin, And Mao.

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.

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.

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.

The Essence Of Management Is To Make Knowledge Productive.

Ideas Are Cheap And Abundant; What Is Of Value Is The Effective Placement Of Those Ideas Into Situations That Develop Into Action.

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.

Leadership Is All About Getting Results.

Trust Is Congruence Between What You Say And What You Do.

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.

Absolute Size By Itself Is No Indicator Of Success And Achievement, Let Alone Of Managerial Competence. Being The Right Size Is.

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.

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.

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