Jef Menguin > Jef's Quotes

“The best way to predict your future is to create it”
― Peter Drucker

“If you want something new, you have to stop doing something old”
― Peter Drucker

“What's measured improves”
― Peter Drucker

“Knowledge has to be improved, challenged, and increased constantly, or it vanishes.”
― Peter Drucker

“Results are obtained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems. ”
― Peter Drucker

“This defines entrepreneur and entrepreneurship - the entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.”
― Peter F. Drucker, Innovation and Entrepreneurship

“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.”
― Peter F. Drucker

“Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship...the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.”
― Peter Drucker

“The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers.
The true dangerous thing is asking the wrong question.”
― Peter Drucker

“Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.”
― Peter Drucker

“Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.”
― Peter F. Drucker

“A person can perform only from strength. One cannot build performance on weakness, let alone on something one cannot do at all.”
― Peter Drucker

“1. What is our mission? 2. Who is our customer? 3. What does the customer value? 4. What are our results? 5. What is our plan?2”
― Peter F. Drucker, The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization: An Inspiring Tool for Organizations and the People Who Lead Them

“Every enterprise is a learning and teaching institution. Training and development must be built into it on all levels—training and development that never stop.”
― Peter F. Drucker, The Essential Drucker

“A man should never be appointed to a managerial position if his vision focuses on people’s weaknesses rather than on their strengths. The man who always knows exactly what people cannot do, but never sees anything they can do, will undermine the spirit of his organization.”
― Peter F. Drucker, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices

“To be sure, the fundamental task of management remains the same: to make people capable of joint performance through common goals, common values, the right structure, and the training and development they need to perform and to respond to change.”
― Peter F. Drucker, The Essential Drucker

“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.”
― Peter Drucker

“Effective executives know that their subordinates are paid to perform and not to please their superiors.”
― Peter F. Drucker, The Effective Executive

“One cannot hire a hand—the whole man always comes with it,”
― Peter F. Drucker, The Effective Executive

“Managers are action-focused; they are not philosophers and should not be.”
― Peter F. Drucker, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices

“Entrepreneurship is neither a science nor an art. It is a practice.”
― Peter Drucker

“Leadership is the lifting of a man’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a man’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a man’s personality beyond its limitations. —PETER DRUCKER”
― Samuel Chand, Leadership Pain: The Classroom for Growth

“It takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.”
― Peter F. Drucker, Managing Oneself

“The effective executive, therefore, asks: “What can my boss do really well?” “What has he done really well?” “What does he need to know to use his strength?” “What does he need to get from me to perform?” He does not worry too much over what the boss cannot do.”
― Peter F. Drucker, The Effective Executive

“Effective executives know that their subordinates are paid to perform and not to please their superiors. They know that it does not matter how many tantrums a prima donna throws as long as she brings in the customers.”
― Peter F. Drucker, The Effective Executive

“What is our mission? Who is our customer? What does the customer value? What are our results? and What is our plan?”
― Peter F. Drucker, The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization: An Inspiring Tool for Organizations and the People Who Lead Them

“Too many companies believe people are interchangeable. Truly gifted people never are. They have unique talents. Such people cannot be forced into roles they are not suited for, nor should they be. Effective leaders allow great people to do the work they were born to do.”
― Warren Bennis, Organizing Genius: The Secrets of Creative Collaboration

“In life, change is inevitable. In business, change is vital.”
― Warren Bennis

“A promising junior executive of IBM was involved in a risky venture for the company and managed to lose over $10 million in the gamble. It was a disaster. When Watson called the nervous executive into his office, the young man blurted out, 'I guess you want my resignation?' Watson said, 'You can't be serious. We've just spent $10 million educating you!”
― Warren G. Bennis, Leaders: The Strategies for Taking Charge

“Don’t worry about what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive. —HOWARD THURMAN”
― Christopher Gergen, Life Entrepreneurs: Ordinary People Creating Extraordinary Lives