Efficiency Is Concerned With Doing Things Right. Effectiveness Is Doing the Right Things

Peter Drucker? Elsie Robinson? Warren Bennis? Stephen R. Covey? Glenn J. Shanahan? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: In the domain of business and entrepreneurship two contrasting statements yield a crucial insight: Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things. The most successful organizations require both efficiency and effectiveness. Another version highlights the following …

Strong People Always Have Strong Weaknesses Too

Peter Drucker? Wess Roberts? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: When selecting the head of an organization it is tempting to search for the perfect applicant who excels in everything, i.e., the mythical candidate without flaws. The following two statements provide a counterpoint perspective: Strong people have strong weaknesses, Strong chieftains always have strong weaknesses. This adage …

Thirty Years from Now the Big University Campuses Will Be Relics. Universities Won’t Survive

Peter Drucker? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: The famous management guru Peter Drucker apparently made a provocative prediction about education: Universities won’t survive. Is this quotation accurate? Would you please help me to find a citation? Quote Investigator: In 1997 “Forbes” published an interview with Peter F. Drucker under the title “Seeing things as they really …

Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast

Peter Drucker? Giga Information Group? Mark Fields? Eli Halliwell? Richard Clark? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: Business leaders have found that the pre-existing culture of a company can thwart indispensable changes. A popular cautionary aphorism encapsulates this viewpoint. Here are two versions: Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Culture eats strategy for lunch. The famous management guru …

There Is Surely Nothing Quite So Useless as Doing with Great Efficiency What Should Not Be Done At All

Peter Drucker? Gore Vidal? Professor Giddings? Jesse H. Shera? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: I belong to an organization which is expending an inordinate effort perfecting the execution of a task that is peripheral to its mission. A famous management guru spoke about the pointlessness of efficiently performing a function that should not be done at …

There Is Always a Well-Known Solution to Every Human Problem—Neat, Plausible, and Wrong

Mark Twain? H. L. Mencken? Peter Drucker? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: A popular saying presents a vivid warning about apparent solutions which are too good to be true. Here are four versions: There is a solution to every problem: simple, quick, and wrong. For every problem there is a solution that is simple, neat—and wrong. …

When a Subject Becomes Totally Obsolete We Make It a Required Course

Peter Drucker? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: While perusing a book of quotations categorized as outrageous I saw a remark about college education attributed to the famous business guru Peter Drucker: When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course. I haven’t been able to determine where or when this statement appeared. Is …

We Cannot Predict the Future, But We Can Invent It

Dennis Gabor? Abraham Lincoln? Ilya Prigogine? Alan Kay? Steven Lisberger? Peter Drucker? Forrest C. Shaklee? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: I have seen several different versions of an adage about prediction and invention. Here are some examples: The future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented. We cannot predict the future, but we can invent …