Quotebook: When An Organization Begins to Die

I loved Bob Buford’s book, Drucker & Me.  If you’ve not picked it up yet, I highly recommend it.  It’s a behind the scenes glimpse of one of history’s greatest strategic minds.  It’s also highly practical and you will come away with a great set of takeaways.

Here’s a one liner that instantly made it onto my post-it note wall:

“An organization begins to die the day it begins to be run for the benefit of the insiders and not for the benefit of the customers.”  Drucker & Me

Powerful and sobering.  Early on I was influenced by a talk given by Jim Dethmer where he pointed out that Willow Creek’s primary customers, their end users, were not the people in the seats.  Their customers were the people not in the seats.

Dethmer’s line of reasoning was that Willow Creek existed to reach the customer and that once reached that customer would become an envisioned and empowered “employee” who would join the mission of reaching other customers.

Made great sense when I first heard it in 1991.  Makes even more sense today.

“An organization begins to dies the day it begins to be run for the benefit of the insiders and not for the benefit of the customers.”