Drucker

I'm currently reading about Peter Drucker, and wanted to pass on a few thoughts of his. I mainly was interested in his views on management, but I stumbled on some other ideas too.

-Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their jobs done.

-A company's primary responsibility is to serve its customers, to provide the goods or services which the company exists to produce. Profit is not the primary goal, but rather an essential condition for the company's continued existence. Other responsibilities, e.g., to employees and society, exist to support the company's continued ability to carry out its primary purpose.

-If...organizations struggled, he believed it was usually because of outdated ideas, a narrow conception of problems, or internal misunderstandings.

-Thirty years from now the big university campuses will be relics. Universities won't survive. It's as large a change as when we first got the printed book. Do you realize that the cost of higher education has risen as fast as the cost of health care? And for the middle-class family, college education for their children is as much of a necessity as is medical care—without it the kids have no future. Such totally uncontrollable expenditures, without any visible improvement in either the content or the quality of education, means that the system is rapidly becoming untenable. Higher education is in deep crisis.

And of course a Ross Perot quote to close it up.

-Inventories can be managed, but people must be led.