From "The Effective Executive" by Peter Drucker:
Executives, whether they like it or not, are forever bailing out the past... Yesterday's actions and decisions, no matter how courageous or wise they may have been, inevitably become today's problems, crises, and stupidities. Yet it is the executives specific job to commit today's resources to the future. This means that every executive forever has to spend time, energy, and ingenuity on patching up or bailing out the action sand decisions of yesterday...
No one has much difficulty getting rid of the total failures. They liquidate themselves. Yesterday's success, however, always linger on long beyond their productive life. Even more dangerous are the activities which should should do well and which, for some reason or other, do not produce.... Unless they are pruned, and pruned ruthlessly, they drain the lifeblood from an organization.
