Now that spring is finally here, it’s time to get inspired by these 25 Peter Drucker quotes regarding renewal, beginnings, hope, opportunities, optimism, reinvention, innovation, future-focused thinking, and positive/productive change.
The quotes cover a long time span in Drucker’s career, and can be applied inside or outside the workplace. I’ve included the book title the quote appears in, and the year of publication.
“Change is opportunity.” – The Frontiers of Management, 1986
“Good executives focus on opportunities rather than problems.” – The Effective Executive, 2004
“If you start out by looking at change as threat, you will never innovate.” – Managing in the Next Society, 2002
“It is futile to try to guess what products and processes the future will want. But it is possible to make up one’s mind what idea one wants to make a reality in the future, and to build a different business on such an idea.” – Managing for Results, 1964
“Listening for the signal that it is time to change is an essential skill for self-development.” – Managing the Non-Profit Organization, 1990
“Look carefully at your daily work, your daily tasks, and ask: “Would I go into this today knowing what I know today? Am I producing results or just relaxing in a comfortable routine, spending effort on something that no longer produces results?” – Managing the Non-Profit Organization, 1990
“Management has no choice but to anticipate the future, to attempt to mold it, and to balance short-range and long-range goals.” – Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, 1974
“Planning is frequently misunderstood as making future decisions, but decisions exist only in the present.”- The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask About Your Organization, 2008
“Planning tries to optimize tomorrow the trends of today. Strategy aims to exploit the new and different opportunities of tomorrow.” – Managing in Turbulent Times, 1980
“Predicting the future can only get you into trouble. The task is to manage what is there and to work to create what could and should be.” – Managing in Turbulent Times, 1980
“Self-development becomes self-renewal when you walk a different path, become aware of a different horizon, move toward a different destination.” – Managing the Non-Profit Organization, 1990
“The educated person needs to be able to bring his or her knowledge to bear on the present, not to mention molding the future.” – Post-Capitalist Society, 1993
“The first thing to do to attain tomorrow is to slough off yesterday.” – Management: Revised Edition, 2008
“The future requires decisions-now. It imposes risk-now. It requires action-now.” – Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, 1974
“The future will not just happen if one wishes hard enough.” – Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, 1974
“The most effective road to self-renewal is to look for the unexpected success and run with it.” – Managing the Non-Profit Organization, 1990
“The most effective way to manage change successfully is to create it.” – Managing in the Next Society, 2002
“The time dimension is inherent in management because management is concerned with decisions for action. And action is always aimed at results in the future.” – The Practice of Management, 1954
“The unexpected is often the best source of innovation.” – Managing in the Next Society, 2002
“There is one requirement for managing the second half of one’s life: to being creating it long before one enters it.” – Management Challenges for the 21st Century, 1999
“To get at the new and better, you have to throw out the old, outworn, obsolete, no longer productive, as well as the mistakes, failure and misdirections of effort of the past.” – Managing For the Future, 1993
“To make the future demands courage.” – Managing for Results, 1964
“Tomorrow is being made today, irrevocably in most cases.” – Managing in Turbulent Times, 1980
“Yet surely this is a time to make the future- precisely because everything is in flux. This is a time for action.” – Post-Capitalist Society, 1993
“You have to make something different out of yourself, rather than just find a new supply of energy.” – Drucker on Asia, 1995