Peter Drucker, RIP.
Drucker was one of the first and most influential post-War management consultant types. Unlike a lot of the snazzy “here’s a simple mantra to solve all your problems” consultants to follow, Drucker’s advice was neither simplistic nor glossy. But it was good, and managers could do far worse than to read his ground-breaking The Practice of Management (1954).
Some Drucker quotes from WIST (which immediately makes him sound more sound-bitey than he was):
Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
Efficiency is doing things right. Effectiveness is doing the right things.
The understanding that underlies the right decision grows out of the clash and conflict of opinions and out of the serious consideration of competing alternatives.
Drucker was a big proponent of decentralization and worker empowerment, of management by goals, and of customer focus in determining what a business should be doing, all of which sound passé now, but were fairly revolutionary when he proposed them.