In an article that first appeared in the Harvard Business Review in 1993, Peter Drucker identified what he characterized as “the five deadly business sins.” They are:

1. The worship of high profit margins and of “premium pricing” that always creates a market for the competitor. “And high profit margins do not equal maximum profits.”

2. Mispricing a new product by charging “what the market will bear.” “This, too, creates risk-free opportunity for the competition.”

3. Cost-driven pricing. “The only thing that works is price-driven costing.”

4. Slaughtering tomorrow’s opportunity on the altar of yesterday. Drucker cites the example of IBM that committed this sin at least twice, first when forbidding sales initiatives that could threaten the sales of punch cards and years later when preventing its PC people from contacting mainframe customers.

5. Feeding problems and starving opportunities. “All one can get by ‘problem solving’ is damage containment. Only opportunities produce results and growth.”

The complete article as well as 24 others are available for the first time in a single volume, Managing in a Time of Great Change, published by Harvard Business Press in 2009 as part of the centennial celebration of Peter Drucker (November 19, 1909 – November 11, 2005).