Background Image
...
There Is Nothing So Useless As Doing Efficiently That Which Should Not Be Done At All.
-Peter Drucker
...
Please Wait....
Translating....

There Is Nothing So

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

Understanding the Quote: "there is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not..."

This quote by Peter Drucker reflects deeply on the theme of inspirational. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Inspirational, Motivational, Change, 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 inspirational and motivational. 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: 8
Topic
Inspirational
Motivational
Change
More From Peter Drucker
In Most Organizations, The Bottleneck Is At The Top Of The Bottle.
Organization
Bottles
Bottlenecks
If You Want It, Measure It. If You Can't Measure It, Forget It.
Leadership
Want
Forget
We've Spent The Last 30 Years Focusing On The T In It, And We'll Spend The Next 30 Years Focusing On The I.
Years
Next
Lasts
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.
Teaching
Years
Mba
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
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
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.
Wisdom
Cat
Income
Managing Innovation Will Increasingly Become A Challenge To Management, And Especially To Top Management, And A Touchstone Of Its Competence.
Top Management
Challenges
Innovation
The Great Challenge To Management Today Is To Make Productive The Tremendous New Resource, The Knowledge Worker. This, Rather Than The Productivity Of The Manual Worker, Is The Key To Economic Growth And Economic Performance In Today's Society.
Business
Keys
Challenges
You Cannot Prevent A Major Catastrophe, But You Can Build An Organization That Is Battle-ready, Where People Trust One Another. In Military Training, The First Rule Is To Instill Soldiers With Trust In Their Officers - Because Without Trust, They Won't Fight.
Military
Fighting
Organization
Balance Sheets Are Meaningless. Our Accounting Systems Are Still Based On The Assumption That 80% Of Costs Are Manual Labor.
Balance
Cost
Assumption
One Can Either Work Or Meet. One Cannot Do Both At The Same Time.
Focus On Opportunities, Not Problems.
Opportunity
Focus
Problem
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
There Is A Point Of Complexity Beyond Which A Business Is No Longer Manageable.
Complexity
Manageable
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.
Motivational
Pertinent Questions
Effort
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
Top Management As A Function And As A Structure Was First Developed By Georg Von Siemens (1839-1901) In Germany Between 1870 And 1880, When He Designed And Built The Deutsche Bank And Made It, Within A Very Few Years, Into Continental Europe's Leading And Most Dynamic Financial Institution.
Years
Europe
Top Management
With Christianity, Freedom And Equality Became The Two Basic Concepts Of Europe; They Are Themselves Europe.
Europe
Two
Christianity
It Is More Productive To Convert An Opportunity Into Results Than To Solve A Problem - Which Only Restores The Equilibrium Of Yesterday.
Opportunity
Yesterday
Problem
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
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
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.
Time
Yesterday
Forever
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
Knowledge Is The Source Of Wealth. Applied To Tasks We Already Know, It Becomes Productivity. Applied To Tasks That Are New, It Becomes Innovation.
Knowledge
Innovation
Tasks
The Better A Man Is The More Mistakes Will He Make – For The More New Things He Will Try.
Mistake
Failure
Men
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
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
You Can Either Take Action, Or You Can Hang Back And Hope For A Miracle. Miracles Are Great, But They Are So Unpredictable.
Motivational
Positive
Thinking
The Computer Actually May Have Aggravated Management's Degenerative Tendency To Focus Inward On Costs.
Focus
Inward
Cost
Meetings Are By Definition A Concession To Deficient Organization. For One Either Meets Or One Works.
Business
Organization
Definitions
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
There's An Enormous Number Of Managers Who Have Retired On The Job.
Retirement
Jobs
Business
Do First Things First, And Second Things Not At All.
Inspirational
Motivational
Second Chance
Important Decisions Are Risky. They Should Be Controversial. Acclamation Means That Nobody Has Done The Homework.
Mean
Decision
Important
Loafing" Is Easy, But "leisure" Is Difficult.
Leisure
Easy
Difficult
Adequacy Is The Enemy Of Excellence.
Enemy
Excellence
Adequacy
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
Trees Die From The Top”. No One Should Ever Become A Strategist Unless He Or She Is Willing To Have His Or Her Character Serve As A Model For Subordinates
Character
Tree
Should
Trust Is Congruence Between What You Say And What You Do.
Congruence
No Single Piece Of Macroeconomic Advice Given By The Experts To Their Government Has Ever Had The Results Predicted.
Government
Advice
Experts
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
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
What's Absolutely Unforgivable Is The Financial Benefit Top Management People Get For Laying Off People. There's No Excuse For It. No Justification. No Explanation. This Is Morally And Socially Unforgivable, And We'll Pay A Very Nasty Price.
Top Management
People
Benefits
Yet There Is Nothing More Dangerous Than To Be Premature In Exploiting A Change In Perception.
Perception
Fragility
Dangerous
Unless A Decision Has Degenerated Into Work, It Is Not A Decision; It Is At Best A Good Intention.
Decision
Good Intentions
Intention
Success In The Knowledge Economy Comes To Those Who Know Themselves - Their Strengths, Their Values, And How They Best Perform.
Economy
Knows
Values
The Task Of Leadership Is To Create An Alignment Of Strengths So Strong That It Makes The System's Weaknesses Irrelevant.
Strong
Weakness
Tasks
The Postwar [wwii] Gi Bill Of Rights - And The Enthusiastic Response To It On The Part Of America's Veterans - Signaled The Shift To The Knowledge Society. Future Historians May Consider It The Most Important Event Of The Twentieth Century. We Are Clearly In The Midst Of This Transformation; Indeed, If History Is Any Guide, It Will Not Be Completed Until 2010 Or 2020. But Already It Has Changed The Political, Economic And Moral Landscape Of The World.
Rights
Important Events
America
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 Fault Is In The System And Not In The Men.
Men
Faults
He Man
The Only Things That Evolve By Themselves In An Organization Are Disorder, Friction And Malperformance.
Inspirational
Business
Organization
To Make Knowledge Productive, We Will Have To Learn To See Both Forest And Tree. We Will Have To Learn To Connect.
Knowledge
Tree
Forests
The Basic Definition Of The Business And Of Its Purpose And Mission Have To Be Translated Into Objectives.
Purpose
Definitions
Missions
Change Is The Norm; Unless An Organization Sees That Its Task Is To Lead Change, That Organization Will Not Survive.
Organization
Tasks
Norm
[management] Has Authority Only As Long As It Performs.
Long
Management
Authority
Any Organisation Develops People; It Either Forms Them Or Deforms Them.
People
Form
Organisation
I Think The Growth Industry Of The Future In This Country And The World Will Soon Be The Continuing Education Of Adults. ...i Think The Educated Person Of The Future Is Somebody Who Realizes The Need To Continue To Learn. That Is The New Definition And It Is Going To Change The World We Live In And Work In.
Country
Thinking
Growth
Although He Reputedly Hated The Label Of 'guru', Peter Drucker Was, By Any Standards, The Greatest Management Guru The World Has Yet Seen. In 1996, The Mckinsey Quarterly Journal Described Him As The 'the One Guru To Whom Other Gurus Kowtow' And Robert Heller Described Him As 'the Greatest Man In The History Of Management', Praise Indeed For A Man Who Described Himself As 'just An Old Journalist'.
Men
Labels
World
Spontaneity Is An Infinite Number Of Rehearsed Possibilities.
Numbers
Spontaneity
Infinite
Most Leaders Don't Need To Learn What To Do. They Need To Learn What To Stop.
Leader
Needs
Management Is Not Being Brilliant. Management Is Being Conscientious.
Management
Brilliant
The Society Of Organizations Is New-only Seventy Years Ago Employees Were A Small Minority In Every Society.
Years
Organization
Minorities
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 Problem In My Life And Other People's Lives Is Not The Absence Of Knowing What To Do But The Absence Of Doing It.
Knowing
People
Action
When It Rains Manna From Heaven, Some People Put Up An Umbrella. Others Reach For A Big Spoon.
Rain
People
Heaven
(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
Everything Requires Time. It Is The Only Truly Universal Condition. All Work Takes Place In Time And Uses Up Time. Yet Most People Take For Granted This Unique, Irreplaceable, And Necessary Resource. Nothing Else, Perhaps, Distinguishes Effective Executives As Much As Their Tender Loving Care Of Time.
Time
Unique
People
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
Leadership Is Defined By Results Not Attributes.
Leadership
Future Leaders
Great Leader
Once A Year Ask The Boss, "what Do I Or My People Do That Helps You To Do Your Job?" And "what Do I Or My People Do That Hampers You?"
Jobs
Years
People
Through Systematic Terror, Through Indoctrination, Through Systematic Manipulation Of Stimulus, Reward, And Punishment, We Can Today Break Man And Convert Him Into Brute Animal... The First Step Toward Survival Is Therefore To Make Government Legitimate Again By Attempting To Deprive It Of These Powers... By International Action To Ban Such Powers.
Animal
Men
Survival
You Cannot Build Performance On Weaknesses. You Can Build Only On Strengths.
Weakness
Performances
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.
Live Life
Space
Too Much
Company Cultures Are Like Country Cultures. Never Try To Change One. Try, Instead, To Work With What You've Got.
Change
Country
Trying
To Satisfy The Customer Is The Mission And Purpose Of Every Business.
Purpose
Missions
Customers
One Does Not Start With Facts. One Starts With Opinions.
Doe
Facts
Opinion
Strategic Planning Is The Continuous Process Of Making Present Entrepreneurial (risk-taking) Decisions Systematically And With The Greatest Knowledge Of Their Futurity; Organizing Systematically The Efforts Needed To Carry Out These Decisions; And Measuring The Results Of These Decisions Against The Expectations Through Organized, Systematic Feedback.
Expectations
Effort
Decision
Leadership Is An Achievement Of Trust.
Achievement
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
As A Rule We Perceive What We Expect To Perceive... The Unexpected Is Usually Not Received At All.
Unexpected
Perceive
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
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.
Running
Risk
Different
A Superior Who Works On His Own Development Sets An Almost Irresistible Example.
Example
Development
Irresistible
Plans Are Only Good Intentions Unless They Immediately Degenerate Into Hard Work.
Work
Future
Entrepreneur
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
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
Leadership Is All Hype. We've Had Three Great Leaders In This Century-hitler, Stalin, And Mao.
Hype
Leader
Three
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
...because Knowledge Rapidly Deteriorates Unless It Is Used Constantly, Maintaining Within An Organization An Activity That Is Used Only Intermittently Guarantees Incompetence.
Organization
Guarantees
Maintaining
Leadership Is All About Getting Results.
Results
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
Century
Assets
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.
Wrong Answers
Looks
Blank
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
When A Resource Is Scarce, You Increase Its Yield.
Motivational
Yield
Increase
That Knowledge Has Become The Resource, Rather Than A Resource, Is What Makes Our Society "post-capitalist.
Our Society
Resources
Capitalist
Don't Try To Innovate For The Future. Innovate For The Present!
Future
Trying
Financial "synergy" Is A Will-o'-the-wisp.it Looks Good On Paper, But It Fails To Work Out In Practice.
Practice
Work Out
Looks
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
The Enterprise, By Definition, Must Be Capable Of Producing More Or Better Than All The Resources That Comprise It.
Definitions
Resources
Enterprise
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
Of Those Things That Would Make A Difference, Which Are Right For Me?
Differences
Making A Difference
Elephants Have A Hard Time Adapting. Cockroaches Outlive Everything.
Hard Times
Elephants
Cockroaches
Mission Defines Strategy, And Strategy Defines Structure.
Strategy
Structure
Missions
Succession Planning Often Results In The Selection Of A Weaker Representation Of Yourself.
Planning
Results
Succession
"value Added" Is A Meaningless Concept For A Retail Business , For A Bank, For A Life Insurance Company, And For Any Other Business Which Is Not Primarily Engaged In Manufacturing.
Retail
Insurance Companies
Company
Accept The Fact That We Have To Treat Almost Anybody As A Volunteer.
Relationship
Leadership
Motivation
The Better A Man Is, The More Mistakes He Will Make, For The More New Things He Will Try. I Would Never Promote To A Top-level Job A Man Who Was Not Making Mistakes...otherwise He Is Sure To Be Mediocre.
Jobs
Mistake
Failure
One Cannot Manage Change. One Can Only Be Ahead Of It.
Change
Manage
Marketing And Innovation Produce Results; All The Rest Are Costs.
Innovation
Marketing
Cost
The Rule Should Be To Minimize The Need For People To Get Together To Accomplish Anything.
People
Together
Needs
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
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.
Strength
Attitude
Years
The Days Of The 'intuitive' Manager Are Numbered.
Intuitive
Managers
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
Decisions Of The Kind The Executive Has To Make Are Not Made Well By Acclamation. They Are Made Well Only If Based On The Clash Of Conflicting Views...the First Rule In Decision-making Is That One Does Not Make A Decision Unless There Is Disagreement.
Views
Decision
Doe
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
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
Management And Union May Be Likened To That Serpent Of The Fables Who On One Body Had Two Heads That Fighting Each Other With Poisoned Fangs, Killed Themselves.
Fighting
Two
Body
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
Unless Strategy Evaluation Is Performed Seriously And Systematically, And Unless Strategists Are Willing To Act On The Results, Energy Will Be Used Up Defending Yesterday.
Yesterday
Energy
Evaluation
Time Is The Scarcest Resource.
Time
Resources
Communication Always Makes Demands. It Always Demands That The Recipient Become Somebody, Do Something, Believe Something. It Always Appeals To Motivation.
Motivation
Believe
Communication
The Enterprise Can Fulfill Its Human And Social Functions Only If It Prospers As A Business.
Social
Function
Enterprise
There Is Nothing So Useless As Doing Efficiently That Which Should Not Be Done At All.
Inspirational
Motivational
Change
It's More Important To Do The Right Thing Than To Do Things Right.
Inspirational
Integrity
Important
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
Most Organizations Staff Their Problems & Starve Their Opportunities.
Opportunity
Organization
Problem
Our Job In Life Is To Make A Positive Difference, Not Prove We're Right.
Jobs
Differences
Life Is
Every Success Creates New Opportunities. So Does Every Failure.
Opportunity
Doe
New Opportunity
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
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
An Organization Which Just Perpetuates Today's Level Of Vision, Excellence, And Accomplishment Has Lost The Capacity To Adapt.
Organization
Accomplishment
Excellence
It Is Better To Pick The Wrong Priority Than None At All.
Priorities
Picks
You Must Accept That If The Computer Is A Tool, It Is The Job Of Tool User To Know What To Use It For.
Jobs
Tools
Use
As A Manager You're Paid To Be Uncomfortable. If You're Comfortable, It's A Sure Sign You're Doing Things Wrong.
Uncomfortable
Paid
Managers
The Individual Needs The Return To Spiritual Values, For He Can Survive In The Present Human Situation Only By Reaffirming That Man Is Not Just A Biological And Psychological Being But Also A Spiritual Being, That Is Creature, And Existing For The Purposes Of His Creator And Subject To Him.
Spiritual
Men
Needs
Decision Making Is The Specific Executive Task.
Decision
Tasks
Decision Making
There Is Every Indication That The Period Ahead Will Be An Innovative One, One Of Rapid Change In Technology , Society , Economy , And Institutions .
Technology
Economy
Institutions
Whenever You See A Successful Business, Someone Once Made A Courageous Decision.
Inspirational
Success
Confidence
No Executive Has Ever Suffered Because His Subordinates Were Strong And Effective.
Inspirational
Leadership
Strong
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
Marketing Is The Distinguishing, Unique Function Of The Business.
Unique
Marketing
Function
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
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
We Do Not Need More Laws . No Country Suffers From A Shortage Of Laws. We Need A New Model .
Country
Law
Suffering
Our Most Important Education System Is In The Employees' Own Organization.
Organization
Important
Employee
I'm Better About Things Than About People. I'm More Interested In People, But I'm Better At Ideas.
Ideas
People
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
People Are Effective Because They Say 'no,' Because They Say, 'this Isn't For Me.'
People
Effective Innovations Start Small. They Are Not Grandiose. They Try To Do One Specific Thing.
Innovation
Trying
Grandiose
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
Schools Will Change More In The Next 30 Years Than They Have Since The Invention Of The Printed Book.
Morning
Book
School
What We Are Good At Comes Easy, And We Believe That Unless It Comes Hard, It Can't Be Very Good.
Believe
Easy
Very Good
Defending Yesterday Is Far More Risky Than Making Tomorrow.
Yesterday
Tomorrow
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.
Jobs
Book
School
The Tool User, Provided The Tool Is Made Well, Need Not, And Indeed Should Not, Know Anything About The Tool.
Needs
Tools
Made
In The Knowledge Economy Everyone Is A Volunteer, But We Have Trained Our Managers To Manage Conscripts.
Learning
Knowledge
Volunteer
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
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.
Change
Elements
Problem
Shoes Are Real. Money Is An End Result.
Real
Shoes
Ends
Education Gives You Neither Experience Nor Wisdom.
Giving
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
Objectives Can Be Compared To A Compass Bearing By Which A Ship Navigates. A Compass Bearing Is Firm, But In Actual Navigation, A Ship May Veer Off Its Course For Many Miles. Without A Compass Bearing, A Ship Would Neither Find Its Port Nor Be Able To Estimate The Time Required To Get There.
May
Able
Ships
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 Concept Of Profit Maximization Is, In Fact, Meaningless.
Facts
Profit
Concepts
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
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.
Art
Years
Keys
There's No Such Thing As Knowledge Management; There Are Only Knowledgeable People. Information Only Becomes Knowledge In The Hands Of Someone Who Knows What To Do With It.
Knowledge
Hands
People
Innovation Requires Us To Systematically Identify Changes That Have Already Occurred In A Business - In Demographics, In Values, In Technology Or Science - And Then To Look At Them As Opportunities. It Also Requires Something That Is Most Difficult For Existing Companies To Do: To Abandon Rather Than Defend Yesterday.
Technology
Opportunity
Yesterday
The Purpose Of Information Is Not Knowledge. It Is Being Able To Take The Right Action.
Purpose
Information
Able
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
Meetings Are A Symptom Of Bad Organization. The Fewer Meetings The Better.
Organization
Symptoms
Committees
Success Always Obsoletes The Very Behavior That Achieved It.
Behavior
Many Studies Of Research Scientists Have Shown That Achievement (at Least Below The Genius Level Of An Einstein, Bohr, Or A Planck) Depends Less On Ability In Doing Research Than On The Courage To Go After Opportunity.
Opportunity
Achievement
Genius
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
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
The Ultimate Resource In Economic Development Is People. It Is People, Not Capital Or Raw Materials That Develop An Economy.
People
Raw Materials
Development
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
Charisma Becomes The Undoing Of Leaders. It Makes Them Inflexible, Convinced Of Their Own Infallibility, Unable To Change
Leader
Undoing
Charisma
Every Time You Do Something That Is Important, Write Down What You Expect Will Happen.
Writing
Important
Happens
An Institution Which Is Financed By A Budget - Or Which Enjoys A Monopoly Which The Customer Cannot Escape - Is Rewarded For What It Deserves Rather Than What It Earns. It Is Paid For 'good Intentions' And 'programs'. It Is Paid For Not Alienating Important Constituents Rather Than Satisfying Any One Group. It Is Misdirected By The Way It Is Being Paid Into Defining Performance And Results As What Will Produce The Budget Rather Than As What Will Produce Contribution.
Important
Way
Defining
Keep Your Eye On The Task, Not On Yourself. The Task Matters, And You Are A Servant
Eye
Tasks
Matter
In Todays Economy, The Most Important Resource Is No Longer Labor, Capital Or Land; It Is Knowledge
Land
Important
Today
The Best Plan Is Only A Plan... Unless It Degerates Into Work.
Plans
It Does Not Matter Whether The Worker Wants Responsibility Or Not, ...the Enterprise Must Demand It Of Him.
Responsibility
Doe
Demand
The New Always Looks So Puny-so Unpromising-next To The Reality Of The Massive, Ongoing Business.
Reality
Looks
Ongoing
My Greatest Strength As A Consultant Is To Be Ignorant And Ask A Few Questions.
Asking Questions
Ignorant Masses
Asking Too Many Questions
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
If You Want To Know What The Future Is, Be Part Of Its Development.
Development
Want
Knows
The Need To Manage Oneself Is Creating A Revolution In Human Affairs.
Creating
Needs
Revolution
I'm A Writer. I Could Not Or Would Not Ever Run A Business. I Don't Even Have A Secretary. And Contrary To Some Of The Stereotypes, Entrepreneurs Are Not Loners. I Am.
Running
Entrepreneur
Loner
Strategic Management Is Not A Box Of Tricks Or A Bundle Of Techniques. It Is Analytical Thinking And Commitment Of Resources To Action. But Quantification Alone Is Not Planning. Some Of The Most Important Issues In Strategic Management Cannot Be Quantified At All.
Commitment
Thinking
Issues
In Book Subjects A Student Can Only Do A Student's Work. All That Can Be Measured Is How Well He Learns, Rather Than How Well He Performs. All He Can Show Is Promise.
Book
Promise
Students
Institutions Mistake Good Intentions For Objectives. They Say "health Care"; That's An Intention, Not An Objective.
Mistake
Care
Good Intentions
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
Efficiency, Which Is Doing Things Right, Is Irrelevant Until You Work On The Right Things.
Inspiring
Efficiency
Irrelevant
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
Leaders Grow; They Are Not Made.
Leadership
Leader
Made
They Wrongly Believe That Good Intentions Move Mountains. Bulldozers Move Mountains. But There Are Exceptions.
Believe
Moving
Mountain
Trending Author
Ann Brashares
Marcus Aurelius
Napoleon Bonaparte
W. Eugene Smith
Laura Schlessinger
Ryszard Kapuscinski
Category
Information