How To Get The Job Done Right

Posted on November 04, 2008 by Ronald T. Brown, Ph.D.

The following is a collection of insightful observations from leadership and management guru, Peter Drucker.

• The critical question is not “How can I achieve more?” but “How can I contribute more?”

• There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer. He alone will give you employment.

• Focus on your leaders. It is easier to raise the performance of one leader than it is to raise the performance of a whole mass.

• Leadership is not rank.  It is responsibility.

• An executive should be a realist; and no one is less realistic than the cynic.

• You cannot prevent a major catastrophe, but you can build an organization that is battle-ready, where people trust one another.  In military training, the first rule is to instill soldiers with trust in their officers — because without trust, they won’t fight.

• Listening (the first competence of leadership) is not a skill, it is a discipline. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut.

• It is easy to look good in a boom.

• Luck never built a business. Prosperity and growth come only to the business that systematically finds and exploits its potential.

• The one person to distrust is the one who never makes a mistake.  Either he is a phony, or he stays with the safe, the tried, and the trivial.

• There are keys to success in managing your leaders.  First, put down on a piece of paper a “boss list,” a list of everyone to whom you are accountable.  Next, go to each “boss” on the list and ask, “What do I do that helps you do your job?” And, “What am I doing that makes your job more difficult?”

• A decision is a commitment to action. No decision has, in fact, been made until carrying it out has become somebody’s responsibility.

• It’s much easier to sell the Brooklyn Bridge than to give it away. Nobody trusts you if you offer something for free.

• Until a business returns a profit that is greater than its cost of capital, it does not create wealth — it destroys it.

• Freedom is not fun.  It is a responsible choice.

• One can’t manage change.  One can only be ahead of it.

• Just go out and make yourself useful.