Peter Drucker Favorite Quotes According to Author Bob Nelson

With the Passing of Peter Drucker, much is being written about he vast body of work. Here is a nice short list of some Druckerisms worth pondering. It was listed as a comment in a blog that I've mentioned before, 800-CEO-READ Blog. If you are not actively working the blogosphere for info, you are missing a bunch of great stuff.

So here is the list as produced by Bob Nelson, author of many best selling business books, including 1001 Ways to Reward Employees.

I've read many of Dr. Drucker's books (and listened to most of them on audio) and would have to say Managing For Results is my favorite. He helped me realize that simple insights can be very useful to others and to not shy away from those I had about managing people and organizations.

It was Dr. Drucker's tome, Management: Tasks, Resposibilities, Practices that had one of his insights about rewards that grabbed me and helped me realize that managers needed to have new and many ways to reward and motivate their staff:

"Economic incentives are becoming rights rather than rewards. Merit raises are always introduced as rewards for exceptional performance. In no time at all they become a right..." (p 239)

Some of my other favorite Drucker insights include:

"What is our business?
Who is our customer?
What does the customer consider value?"

"You can't manage what you can't measure."

"Managing is getting work done through others."

"Ask people what two things they can improve."

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

"The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker, but of the manager."

"Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations."

"Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable. Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things."

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

"The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said."

"The best way to predict the future is to create it. What you have to do and the way you have to do it is incredibly simple. Whether you are willing to do it, that's another matter. Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes, but no plans."

The list could go on and on...

Bob Nelson, Ph.D. & author