Essential Drucker
the fundamental task of management remains the same: to make people capable of joint performance through common goals, common values, the right structure, and the training and development they need to perform and to respond to change. (Drucker 2008, chap. 1)
Not to innovate is the single largest reason for the decline of existing organizations. Not to know how to manage is the single largest reason for the failure of new ventures. (Drucker 2008, chap. 1)
Management is about human beings. Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant. (Drucker 2008, chap. 1)
Finally, the single most important thing to remember about any enterprise is that results exist only on the outside … Inside an enterprise, there are only costs. (Drucker 2008, chap. 1)
There are three tasks, equally important but essentially different, that management has to perform to enable the institution in its charge to function and to make its contribution.
- Establishing the specific purpose and mission of the institution, whether business enterprise, hospital, or university
- Making work productive and the worker effective
- Managing social impacts and social responsibilities (Drucker 2008, chap. 2)
Because its purpose is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two–and only these two–basic functions: marketing and innovation. (Drucker 2008, chap. 3)
True marketing starts out the way Sears starts out–with the customer, his demographics, his realities, his needs, his values. It does not ask, What do we want to sell? It asks, What does the customer want to buy? (Drucker 2008, chap. 3)
A favorite story at management meetings is that of the three stonecutters who were asked what they were doing. The first replied, “I am making a living.” The second kept on hammering while he said “I am doing the best job of stonecutting in the entire country.” The third one looked up with a visionary gleam in his eyes and said, “I am building a cathedral.”
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It is the second man who is a problem. … But there is always a danger that the true workman, the true professional, will believe that he is accomplishing something when in effect he is just polishing stones … (Drucker 2008, chap. 8)
They have each of their subordinates write a “manager’s letter” twice a year. In this letter to his superior, each manager first defines the objectives of his superior’s job and of his own job as he sees them. He then sets down the performance standards that he believes are being applied to him. Next, he lists the things he must do himself to attain these goals–and what he considers the major obstacles within his own unit. He lists the things his superior and the company do that help him and the things that hamper him. Finally, he outlines what he proposes to do during the next year to reach his goals.
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This device, like no other I have seen, brings out how easily the unconsidered and casual remarks of even the best “boss” can confuse and misdirect. (Drucker 2008, chap. 8)