The talk you hear about adapting to change is not only stupid, it's dangerous. The only way you can manage change is to create it.

The remark rejects a passive, reactive posture toward upheaval. Drucker’s management thought consistently treats change as a constant of modern economic life, but he argues that merely “adapting” leaves an organization perpetually behind events and vulnerable to competitors, technology shifts, and social or regulatory shocks. The “danger” is strategic complacency: adaptation can become an excuse for incrementalism and for letting others set the agenda. To “manage” change, in this view, is to act entrepreneurially—define a desired future, innovate, and shape markets, processes, and institutions so that external change becomes something you have anticipated or initiated rather than something that happens to you.