Sunday, November 15, 2009

REMEMBERING PETER DRUCKER

Received a great tweet tonight from Coach Clarence Gaines, Jr. on Peter Drucker who recently passed away at the age of 95. Drucker is considered by many the "father of modern management." Two of my favorite books are: The Daily Drucker: 366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done and People and Performance. Drucker had a primary belief that taking action without thinking is the cause of every failure. Here are a few memorable quotes from Drucker.

"Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes."

"Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things."

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

"Making good decisions is a crucial skill at every level."

"Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work."

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."

"The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn't said."

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."

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

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

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

"Management is about human beings. Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant."

''Each institution has to do its own work the way each instrument in an orchestra plays only its own part. But there is also the score, the community. And only if each individual instrument contributes to the score, is there music.''