Management Quotations

"There is but one certainty regarding the times ahead, the times in which managers must work and perform. This certainty is that they will be turbulent times. In turbulent times, the first task of management is to make sure of the firm's capacity for survival; to make sure of its structural strength and soundness; and to make sure of its capacity to survive a blow, to adapt itself to sudden change, and to avail itself to sudden change and new opportunities." [Drucker, 1974]



"There are no solutions with respect to the future. There are only choices between alternative courses of action, each imperfect, each risky, each uncertain, and each requiring different efforts and different costs. But nothing could help the manager more than to realize what alternatives are available to him and what they imply." [Drucker, 1974]


A new leader has to be able to change an organization that is dreamless, soulless and visionless ... someone's got to make a wake up call. - Warren Bennis

I used to think that running an organization was equivalent to conducting a symphony orchestra. But I don't think that's quite it; it's more like jazz. There is more improvisation. - Warren Bennis

Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes... but no plans. - Peter Drucker

It is important that an aim never be defined in terms of activity or methods. It must always relate directly to how life is better for everyone. . . . The aim of the system must be clear to everyone in the system. The aim must include plans for the future. The aim is a value judgment. - W. Edwards Deming

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. --Harry S Truman

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. --Robert F. Kennedy

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action. --Goethe

"Management" means, in the last analysis, the substitution of thought for brawn and muscle, of knowledge for folklore and superstition, and of cooperation for force. . .
Peter Drucker (1909 - 2005), People and Performance

In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognize a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman.
David M. Ogilvy

If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life. - Abraham Maslow