In book subjects a student can only do a student’s work. All that can be measured is how well he learns, rather than how well he performs. All he can show is promise.
Tomorrow everybody – or practically everybody – will have had the education of the upper class of yesterday, and will expect equivalent opportunities. That is why we face the problem of making every kind of job meaningful and capable of satisfying every educated man.
The fundamental reality for every worker, from sweeper to executive vice-president, is the eight hours or so that he spends on the job. In our society of organizations, it is the job through which the great majority has access to achievement, to fulfillment, and to community.
In the modern corporation the decisive power, that of the managers, is derived from no one but the managers themselves controlled by nobody and nothing and responsible to no one. It is in the most literal sense unfounded, unjustified, uncontrolled and irresponsible power.
A manager sets objectives – A manager organizes – A manager motivates and communicates – A manager, by establishing yardsticks, measures – A manager develops people .
Without institution there is no management. But without management there is no institution.
Management and union may be likened to that serpent of the fables who on one body had two heads that fighting each other with poisoned fangs, killed themselves.
We have only one alternative: either to build a functioning industrial society or see freedom itself disappear in anarchy and tyranny.
Time is totally perishable and cannot be stored. Yesterday’s time is gone forever, and will never come back. Time is always in short supply. There is no substitute for time. Everything requires time.
We will have to learn to lead people rather then to contain them.
Results is all that separates one company from another.
As with every phenomenon of the objective universe, the first step toward understanding work is to analyze it.
Absolute size by itself is no indicator of success and achievement, let alone of managerial competence. Being the right size is.
A primary task of management in the developed countries in the decades ahead will be to make knowledge productive.
A superior who works on his own development sets an almost irresistible example.
The real achiever does one thing at a time.
Change is the norm; unless an organization sees that its task is to lead change, that organization will not survive.
Morale in an organization does not mean that “people get along together”; the test is performance not conformance.
If something fails despite being carefully planned, carefully designed, and conscientiously executed, that failure often bespeaks underlying change and, with it, opportunity.
The only industries that function well are the industries that take responsibility for training. The Japanese, you know, assume that when you first come to work you know absolutely nothing. School isn’t preparation for work and never was.