Harry Joiner at Marketing Headhunter.com has a great tribute post to Peter Drucker (who past away yesterday). Here are some of his favorite Drucker quotes that I also like:
- The critical question is not "How can I achieve?" but "What can I contribute?"
- There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer. He alone gives employment.
- Leadership is not rank. It is responsibility.
- An executive should be a realist; and no one is less realistic than the cynic.
- Listening (the first competence of leadership) is not a skill, it is a discipline. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut.
- The one person to distrust is the one who never makes a mistake. Either he is a phony, or he stays with the safe, the tried, and the trivial.
- A decision is a commitment to action. No decision has, in fact, been made until carrying it out has become somebody's responsibility.
- It's much easier to sell the Brooklyn Bridge than to give it away. Nobody trusts you if you offer something for free.
- "What do we do now?" Very often, the right answer is abandonment.
- One can't manage change. One can only be ahead of it.
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