10 Peter F. Drucker Quotes on Business

Peter F. Drucker quotes on business

25. 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?' -- The Frontiers of Management (1986)

26. All economic activity is by definition 'high risk.' And defending yesterday--that is, not innovating--is far more risky than making tomorrow. -- Innovations and Entrepreneurship (1985)

28. [human types needed for top management tasks] ...the 'thought man' ...the 'action man' ...the 'people man' ...the 'front man' ...Yet those four temperaments are almost never found in one person. ...The one-man top management job is a major reason why business fail to grow. -- Management: Tasks Responsibilities Practices (1974)

29. 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. -- Management: Tasks Responsibilities Practices (1974)

31. 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. -- The Age of Discontinuity (1969)

42. 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. -- Landmarks of Tomorrow: A Report on the New 'Post-Modern' World (1959)

46. There is only one valid definition of a business purpose: to create a customer. -- The Practice of Management (1954)

52. Free enterprise cannot be justified as being good for business. It can be justified only as being good for society. The Practice of Management (1954)

71. Management is doing things right, Leadership is doing the right things!

87. The World According to Peter Drucker Jack Beatty, The Free Press, 1998