The Spirit of Performance

The purpose of an organization is to enable common men to do uncommon things.

Morality, to have any meaning at all, must not be exhortation, sermon, or good intentions. It must be practices. Specifically:

1. The focus of the organization must be on performance. The 1st requirement of the spirit of high performance is high performance standards, for the group as well as each individual.
2. The focus of the organization must be on opportunities rather than on problems.
3. The decisions that affect people - their placement, pay, promotion, demotion and severance - must express the values and beliefs of the organization.
4. Finally, in its people decisions, management must demonstrate that it realizes that integrity is one absolute requirement for any manager, the one quality that he has to bring with him and cannot be expected to acquire later on.

~Peter Drucker, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices.