“Instead of being managed “in the best balanced interests of stakeholders,” corporations [in the 1980's were] managed exclusively to “maximize shareholder’s value”… Managing a business exclusively for these shareholders alienates the very people on whose motivation and dedication the modern business depends: the knowledge workers. An engineer will not be motivated to work to make a speculator rich.”
– Peter Drucker, 1993 Post-Capitalist Society
Isn’t this (ignoring demands to “maximize” shareholder value) exactly what Google is doing? Drucker predicts the future once again.
Awesome quote.
Reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from David Packard: “Profit is not the proper end and aim of management – it is what makes all of the proper ends and aims possible.”
Seen in Built to Last, which cites the source as a speech presented to the American Management Association in 1958 entitled “A Management Code of Ethics”