Peter Drucker was described by BusinessWeek Magazine as 'the man who invented management'. Agree or not, he was certainly a key figure behind the philosophy of management and business leadership, a prolific author, and originator of many a manager's mantra.
Here are 12 of his classic quotations that have stood the test of time well into the digital age (number 8 is practically the first law of RPA); if some of them feel familiar, it's likely they have been replicated on a keyring, coaster or motivational poster hanging in a reception near you.
- The purpose of a business is to create a customer.
- Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.
- The new information technology... internet and email... have practically eliminated the physical costs of communications.
- The best way to predict the future is to create it.
- My greatest strength as a consultant is to be ignorant and ask a few questions.
- Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed.
- People who do not take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.
- There is nothing as useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
- We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. In addition, the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.
- Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. The act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.
- Management by objective works - if you know the objectives. Ninety percent of the time you do not.
- 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.
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