The purpose of an organization is to enable ordinary humans beings to do extraordinary things.
Strategic management is not a box of tricks or a bundle of techniques. It is analytical thinking and commitment of resources to action. But quantification alone is not planning. Some of the most important issues in strategic management cannot be quantified at all.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Strategic management requires deep analytical thinking and resource commitment, going beyond mere quantification.
Peter Drucker emphasizes that strategic management is more than just a collection of techniques and tricks; it involves careful analytical thinking and the dedicated allocation of resources to engage in actionable plans. He highlights the importance of recognizing that some critical aspects of strategic management cannot be measured quantitatively, underscoring the nuanced and complex nature of effective planning in business.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a leadership workshop, we can discuss how Peter Drucker's insights on strategic management apply to effective team planning.
More from Peter Drucker
All quotes →In the Western tradition, we have focused on teaching as a skill and forgotten what Socrates knew: teaching is a gift, learning is a skill.
We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.
The basic economic resource - the means of production -_x000D_ _x000D_ is no longer capital, nor natural resources, nor labor._x000D_ _x000D_ It is and will be knowledge.
Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes... but no plans.
The strength of the computer lies in its being a logic machine. It does precisely what it is programed to do. This makes it fast and precise. It also makes it a total moron; for logic is essentially stupid.
Similar quotes
Money goes out first to pay expenses and then comes back as profits later - if at all. The high rate of failure of new businesses makes painfully clear that there is nothing inevitable about the money coming back.
So many businesses get worried about looking like they might make a mistake, they become afraid to take any risk. Companies are set up so that people judge each other on failure. I am not going to get fired if we have a bad year. Or a bad five years. I don’t have to worry about making things look good if they’re not. I can actually set up the company to create value.
Values can set a company apart from the competition by clarifying its identity and serving as a rallying point for employees. But coming up with strong values - and sticking to them - requires real guts.
I think that the direct conversation is exactly what companies need to earn trust of customers. Admit an error. Fix a problem. Commit to doing better. That is only human.
Too often, executive compensation in the U.S. is ridiculously out of line with performance. That won't change, moreover, because the deck is stacked against investors when it comes to the CEO's pay. The upshot is that a mediocre-or-worse CEO - aided by his handpicked VP of human relations and a consultant from the ever-accommodating firm of Ratchet, Ratchet and Bingo - all too often receives gobs of money from an ill-designed compensation arrangement.
What I do know, at least what I think I have learned from my experiences in business, is that when there is a rush for everyone to do the same thing, it becomes more difficult to do. Not easier. Harder.