This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
People are fulfilled only to the extent that they create their world (which is a human world), and create it with their transforming labor. The fulfillment of humankind as human beings lies, then, in the fulfillment of the world. If for a person to be in the world of work is to be totally dependent, insecure, and permanently threatened--if their work does not belong to them--the person cannot be fulfilled. Work that is not free ceases to be a fulfilling pursuit and becomes an effective means of dehumanization.
Fulfillment | Means | Work | World |
It seems to me that the critic's task should be to help people see more in the work than they might see without him. That's a modest function, and you don't need a big theory for it.
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
The people who work within these industries or public services know that there are basic flaws. But they are almost forced to ignore them and to concentrate instead on patching here, improving there, fighting the fire or caulking that crack. They are thus unable to take the innovation seriously, let alone to try to compete with it. They do not, as a rule, even notice it until it has grown so big as to encroach on their industry or service, by which time it has become irreversible. In the meantime, the innovators have the field to themselves.
Fighting | Industry | Innovation | People | Public | Time | Work |
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
The center of gravity of the work force is shifting from the manual worker to the knowledge worker.
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
The honest work of yesterday has lost its social status, its social esteem.
Work |
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
The most critical case in a corporation, especially a big one, is when everything goes well, when you have accomplished your objectives. When the temptation is to work twice as hard instead of saying, have we have accomplished our objectives, we have to think again.
Temptation | Work | Temptation | Think |
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you've got.
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
Use feedback analysis to identify your strengths. Then go to work on improving your strengths. Identify and eliminate bad habits that hinder the full development of your strengths. Figure out what you should do and do it. Finally, decide what you should not do.
Work |
I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that the production of wealth is not the work of any one man, and the acquisition of great fortunes is not possible without the co-operation of multitudes of men.
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
One cannot buy, rent or hire more time. The supply of time is totally inelastic. No matter how high the demand, the supply will not go up. There is no price for it. 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. All work takes place in, and uses up time. Yet most people take for granted this unique, irreplaceable and necessary resource.
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
Everything requires time. It is the only truly universal condition. All work takes place in time and uses up time. Yet most people take for granted this unique, irreplaceable, and necessary resource. Nothing else, perhaps, distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time.
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
The productivity of the newly dominant groups in the work force, knowledge workers and service workers, will be the biggest and toughest challenge facing managers in the developed countries for decades to come. And serious work on this daunting task has only begun.
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say I. And that's not because they have trained themselves not to say I. They don't think I. They think we; they think team. They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don't sidestep it, but we get the credit. This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.
Responsibility | Work | Think | Understand |
Percy W. Bridgman, fully Percy Williams Bridgman
The result is that a generation of physicists is growing up who have never exercised any particular degree of individual initiative, who have had no opportunity to experience its satisfactions or its possibilities, and who regard cooperative work in large teams as the normal thing. It is a natural corollary for them to feel that the objectives of these large teams must be something of large social significance.
Experience | Individual | Objectives | Opportunity | Regard | Work |
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.
Responsibility | Work |
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
No decision has been made unless carrying it out in specific steps has become someone's work assignment and responsibility.
Peter F. Drucker, fully Peter Ferdinand Drucker
The key question for a leader is, ‘What can I do in this organization that nobody else can do?’ And several questions emerge from that: ‘What did the good Lord ordain me for? What are my strengths? Where have I seen results?’ Very few of us ask these questions because very few of us even know how we perform. What am I good at? We don't usually ask that question. We've been trained to notice our weaknesses, not our strengths. Schools, of necessity, are remedial institutions. When teachers meet with parents, rarely do they say, ‘Your Johnny should do more writing. He's so talented in writing.’ Now, more likely you'll hear, ‘Johnny needs more work on his math. He's a bit weak in that area.’ As a result, few of us really know our strengths. The great teachers, and great leaders, recognize strengths and focus on them.
Focus | Good | Lord | Organization | Question | Work | Leader |