Peter Drucker Quotes

People don't believe what you tell them. They rarely believe what you show them. They often believe what their friends tell them. They always believe what they tell themselves.

I was in college for organizational communication and politics because I was just fascinated by influence. I wondered how people have influence, not because I wanted to inspire the world - yet.

Humans cannot avoid trying to influence others. Everything we say or do is examined and interpreted by others for clues as to our intentions.

One of the most important keys to getting through to anyone and then influencing them is to realize that inside everyone's mind, they listen to someone or something.

There are absolutely ways to manipulate behavior, because our behavior is endlessly being manipulated by the world around us.

You can present people with ideas they may come to believe in, and as a result of them they will act, if they have the opportunities. Presenting people with opportunities is part of what politics is about.

The only way on Earth to influence other people is to talk about what they want and show them how to get it.

What happens when two people talk? That is really the basic question here, because, that's the basic context in which all persuasion takes place.

Man is so made that if he is told often enough that he is a fool he believes it.

There should be a name for this, for the process whereby one knows one is being yanked and concedes it has been done successfully - that one is grateful to have been spun. In the theater, it is called the willing suspension of disbelief. That's what allows the play to make an impact on the audience: they have to be able to make believe that what's happening on the stage is really happening. Maybe to a degree it is a requirement for all political participation, all effective political communication, too.

Eloquence shows the power and possibility of man. There is one of whom we took no note, but on a certain occasion it appears that he has a secret virtue never suspected - that he can paint what has occurred and what must occur, with such clearness to a company, as if they saw it done before their eyes. By leading their thought he leads their will, and can make them do gladly what an hour ago they would not believe that they could be led to do at all.

if you want someone to stop listening to you go ahead and yell. If you want them to listen to every word, whisper. -Mimi

At the end of reasons comes persuasion.

Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate.

One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.

Leaders have two characteristics: first they are going somewhere, and second they are able to persuade other people to go with them.

You can't change people's minds, we are not God. We can do our best to do what we do, whatever job we have to bring sort of goodness out there. But we can't change people. As an artist what I can do is to communicate!

Poetry is a man arguing with himself; rhetoric is a man arguing with others.

Most great leaders are also great communicators. Great leaders have learned how to persuade so their objectives can be reached. The most powerful device to persuade is story. Stating facts and figures is not memorable. Emotionally connecting your audience to your idea through story will move them.

I believe one of the best preparations for marriage is participating in a small group. If a person has learned to be intimate and honest with a few friends before they get married, they will have less reason to fear intimacy after they are married.

You should be able to grab people with ideas.

What must underlie successful epidemics, in the end, is a bedrock belief that change is possible, that people can radically transform their behavior or beliefs in the face of the right kind of impetus.

You almost never get the pleasure of seeing that you won the argument in real time. People just don't like to publicly change their minds. They change their minds in private.

If we say something often enough, we come to believe it. We don't usually delude others until after we have first deluded ourselves.

Throughout human history, our greatest leaders and thinkers have used the power of words to transform our emotions, to enlist us in their causes, and to shape the course of destiny. Words can not only create emotions, they create actions. And from our actions flow the results of our lives.