Peter Drucker

If analysis shows that someone's brilliant work fails again and again as soon as cooperation from others is required, it probably indicates a lack of courtesy - that is, a lack of manners.

The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.

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.

The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.

Management by objective works - if you know the objectives. Ninety percent of the time you don't.

The computer is a moron.

Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.

Accept the fact that we have to treat almost anybody as a volunteer.

The purpose of a business is to create a customer.

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.

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.'

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.

Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.

My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.

Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you've got.

Today knowledge has power. It controls access to opportunity and advancement.

Executives owe it to the organization and to their fellow workers not to tolerate nonperforming individuals in important jobs.

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.

So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.

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.

When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course.

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 new information technology... Internet and e-mail... have practically eliminated the physical costs of communications.

Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes... but no plans.

Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.