Peter Drucker Quotes

Foresight is not about predicting the future, it's about minimizing surprise.

I do not like the phrase: Never cross a bridge till you come to it. The world is owned by men who cross bridges on their imaginations miles and miles in advance of the procession.

All economic activity is by definition "high risk." And defending yesterday--that is, not innovating--is far more risky than making tomorrow.

One can have only as much preparation as he has foresight.

One of the functions of an organization, of any organism, is to anticipate the future, so that those relationships can persist over time.

Defending yesterday … is far more risky than making tomorrow.

I always say that my job is not to think about today. My job is to look around the corner and feel and see what's coming, and then warn everybody else.

Every organization has to prepare for the abandonment of everything it does.

He who fails to plan is planning to fail.

It is better to anticipate than to react.

It's all well and good to look back after the fact and see what we should have done, but we rarely know what path is best when we take that first step.

Any company that cannot imagine the future won't be around to enjoy it.

The man of action has the present, but the thinker controls the future.

To deal with future we have to deal with possibilities. Analysis will only tell us what is.

The risk of a business being hit by a low probability, high impact event is far higher than most boards realize because the number of potential wild cards is so great.

A man who does not think and plan long ahead will find trouble right at his door.

By all means take thought for the tomorrow, yes, careful thought and planning and preparation. But have no anxiety.

Strategy is about shaping the future.

You can analyse the past, but you have to design the future

The wise man guards against the future as if it were the present.

Only a fool walks into the future backwards.

The future does not get better by hope, it gets better by plan. And to plan for the future we need goals.

This mandate that I seek is about continuity and sustainability against disruption and stagnation, about moving forward versus regressing. We have to safeguard what we have already achieved. We cannot put at risk what we have; we cannot gamble away our future.

I'm trying to construct a world that maximises the probability that SpaceX continues its mission without me.

Uncertainty is a permanent part of the leadership landscape. It never goes away.