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Peter F. Drucker: Right Man for His/Our Times
I don't like Robert McNamara, circa 1966. (I was in Vietnam at the time.) I think his overly analytic approach to warmaking contributed greatly to the Vietnam quagmire-fiasco. But I do appreciate the Robert McNamara who assisted U.S. Army Air Force General Curtis LeMay at the outset of World War II. To grossly oversimplify, LeMay didn't know how many planes he had or where they were. McNamara came aboard and fixed that. After the war, McNamara was one of the handful of "Whiz Kids" who brought Ford into the modern world by, in effect, doing the same thing for Henry Ford that he had done earlier for General LeMay.
Robert McNamara and Peter Drucker "arrived on the scene" at roughly the same time. And faced an/the same intriguing issue. In short, whether the military or big corporations, organizational size and complexity had far outstripped the toolkit available to manage these busting-out-of-their-pants behemoths.
Jack Welch was not the first CEO of GE, though to read Fortune in the '90s one might have thought so. And Peter Drucker didn't "invent" management. The Chinese probably did thousands of years ago—among other things, Sun Tzu's roughly 2,500-year-old The Art of War is a full-blown "management" text. So, too, Machiavelli's The Prince. And Frederick Taylor's century-old The Principles of Scientific Management.
But Peter Drucker did arguably (1) "invent" modern management as we now think of it; (2) give the study and craft of management-as-profession credibility and visibility, even though biz schools like Harvard had been around for a long time; and (3) provide a (the first?) comprehensive toolkit-framework for addressing and even mastering the problems of emergent enterprise complexity.
And he did something else incredibly important: He popularized the study of-appreciation of modern management. Doubtless Mr Drucker would have been appalled to be described as a "popularizer"—after all, that was one of his abiding and biting criticisms of me. But the truth is that, though his consulting was carried out in the stratospheric confines of CEO-world, his books and articles were very comprehensible and accessible to the likes of LTJG Thomas J Peters, USN, in 1968, when Peters, age 25, left Vietnam and was assigned to a forces management team in the Pentagon. No, the Stanford Graduate School of Business from which Peters got an MBA six years later, in 1972, did not assign as much as a single word of Drucker's work. But in 1968 Peters read (devoured!) his first management text, Drucker's The Effective Executive—and was profoundly influenced by it. LTJG Peters was hardly alone!
To be sure, Drucker wrote continuously on a variety of issues; he was a genuine polymath. His comprehensive pieces in the Atlantic, for instance, covered an absurdly wide spectrum of human endeavor. Yet Drucker, correctly, will not be known for that work, and personally I don't think his historical significance will hinge on "inventing" the "knowledge worker." Rather, it will rest on works such as The Concept of the Corporation (1946), The Practice of Management (1954) and The Effective Executive (1967), which are the tracts that launched the "practice of management" as we know it to this day—and probably as we will know it for decades to come.
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Comments
It's interesting how things fall into perspective, once a person is gone from this world. His/Her ideas get revived, renewed and applied in new contexts.. Let's see what happens to Drucker's theories next! He certainly made a dent in the world..
Posted by Arun Sadhashivan at November 14, 2005 10:12 AM
What's wrong with popularizing? I am not trained in business or management, nor do I work in the field. Yet a great deal of what I know about it, especially the "usefuly knowledge" that I can relate to my personal work and life, has come from two men: Peter Drucker and Tom Peters. Long live popularizers!
Tom once said that he wanted to "make a difference." He has! So did Peter Drucker. RIP to a great thinker.
Posted by Tim at November 14, 2005 11:36 AM
What can I say? Peter Drucker was the gurus' guru. It's funny to see people like Tom Peters showing the same feelings that I, a mere mortal, felt when the news hit me.
May PFD shine high on the guru constellation.
Posted by Pedro Wolff at November 14, 2005 12:51 PM
I had read many passages and quotes from Peter Drucker over the years... but never had devoured any books or further information.
Peter's influence hit me hard back in January this year - with his article in Harvard Business Review - "MANAGING YOURSELF" - especially the section on anaylzing decisions - and finding a "another job" later in your career (read the article - it will be worth your time).
So I was somewhat upset and very sad to read of his passing..... it felt like I had lost a mentor that I had only just now discovered.
Reading about his achievements it's amazing to think that Peter Drucker did so much to create happiness in this world - INDIRECTLY - PERHAPS - he did more for freedom from Fascism than any royal or politician could ever do.
Japan should have a day of mourning for this great man - since alas - he is very responsible for that country's large growth in GDP from the 70's onwards.
Posted by Ovlas at November 14, 2005 3:24 PM
It's great to get into our comments and find such thoughtful tributes. What struck me when I looked up references for Peter Drucker was that he was active in business education and research right into his 90s. There are the Peter F. Drucker Foundation: http://www.pfdf.org/ (re-named Leader to Leader Institute), the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management: http://www.cgu.edu/pages/130.asp, Peter Drucker.com: http://www.peter-drucker.com/, and more.
Posted by cathy at November 14, 2005 3:53 PM
I too, feel like I lost a mentor. I read "The Effective Executive" just a few years ago and have seen the influence of that book in a number of books I've read. (Stephen Covey, Roger Merrill, Warren Benis, et al.)
I was also impressed with his activity well into his 90's. His last published book was just last year at the age of 94. He had just finished collaborating on a project this year.
Tom. Keep power walking. Stay healthy. We need you as long as we had Peter Drucker.
Posted by Greg Davidson at November 14, 2005 6:57 PM
My worn paperback copy of "The Effective Executive" has been a great companion during long waits and long flights.
Long Live Peter Drucker.
Posted by Gabriel Salcido at November 14, 2005 7:22 PM
39 books - amazing stamina! Almost 96 - seeing Art Linkletter [90+] George Burns [90+] Bob Hope [90+] -- all live such "love of life lifestyles" - makes for true inspiration.
Posted by Sean at November 15, 2005 9:36 AM
What keeps getting forgotten is that Peter Drucker also invented marketing, customer-centered business philosophies, and the marketing concept ("The customer is the business", "The purpose of business is to create a customer"); portfolio management for multi-SBU companies ("investment in managerial ego", "tomorrow's breadwinners", etc.); business strategy in general ("concentration is the key", "real value comes from leadership which in turn comes from differentiation"); and, of course, systematic innovation ("unexpected success", "process needs", "incongruities", "entrepreneurial strategies", etc.). He may also have been the most important theorist in the management of non-profits as well.
Posted by Full Throttle at November 15, 2005 2:08 PM
Peter Drucker was truly an inspiration to many. My favorite quote is "Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all." Sometimes why something is being done is more important than how it is being done.
Fortunately, Drucker was a Christian. We all have the opportunity to see him again (or for the first time).
Posted by scmpro at November 17, 2005 12:56 PM
The UK Guardian newspaper has marked Peter Drucker's passing in it's leader (US - editorial?) column. On the paper's recent print re-design it introduced a regular short item "in praise of..." It's an excellent way for the paper to highlight something different from the usual national and international news. This is the item from 17 November - I think it is an excellent and fitting tribute.
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,1644019,00.html)
In praise of... Peter Drucker
Peter Drucker, whose death, aged 95, was announced this week, was a man who persistently stayed ahead of his time. As begetter of the science of management he towered above the imitators he spawned.
Long before the computer revolution he predicted a society moulded by knowledge and information. He was the first to chronicle "pension fund socialism" in which workers' control emerged, albeit detached, as pension funds acquired ownership of industry.
He invented the hugely influential theory of "management by objectives" and though feted as an arch capitalist by many of his supporters, he was also one of capitalism's fiercest critics.
As early as 1974 he referred to the "unconscionable greed" of chief executive officers and in 1996 he told Wired magazine that "what's absolutely unforgivable is the financial benefit top management get for laying people off... this is morally and sociably unforgivable".
He claimed "there has been no case in history where the pioneer became the dominant producer" and that "there are no more advantages to big business. There are only disadvantages". Why? Once a company rises above a certain size the head has to rely on subordinates for what is going on who only tell him what they want him to know.
Peter Drucker was the greatest management thinker of the 20th century, the Adam Smith of his calling - and like Smith was misunderstood by many supporters. His biggest fault was not revealing the secret of his own longevity."
Posted by Michael from UK at November 18, 2005 10:42 AM
It was in one of Tom's early books that I first read Drucker's quote: “a business has only two functions in society: marketing and innovation†- it was one of those pivotal moments in my business education-
I later got to hear both of these men speak and shake their hands as they autographed their books for me. The sad part is, management has fallen by the wayside, as have both marketing and innovation- it seems the only skill that's being practiced at the top of many of our largest companies is financial sleight of hand- in order to inflate short-term stock value instead of building real value.
The world was lucky to have Drucker share his thoughts with us- too bad; many seem to think them no longer valuable.
His words had such effect on me, that my firm is actually called: The Next Wave, Marketing • Innovation- because it was never just about advertising if you truly understand what business is supposed to do.
Thanks Tom, for introducing me to Drucker. It's only one way you changed the course of my life.
Posted by David Esrati at November 19, 2005 9:47 PM
When I did my MBA in 1988, Drucker was someone I knew really only through secondary quotes and references, a kind of father figure behind the current day gurus like Peters and Handy.
Strangely it was only in the last few months, researching information and knowledge as subjects that I discovered the depth of Drucker's background, and had started to blog many references to his work beyond the popular management texts.
http://www.psybertron.org/?p=1152
Don't it always seem to go,
You don't know what you got till it's gone ?
They paved paradise
Put up a parking lot.
Sadly missed.
Ian
Posted by ian glendinning at November 22, 2005 10:50 AM
Peter Drucker's passing has left a void in the field of leadership and management thinking. His work is as compelling an relevant today as it was when it was first published... and that claim can be made of only a few authors. His "Theory of the Business" is one of the foundations of my thinking and consulting practice.
I can imagine Peter still sharing his thinking and teaching... asking provocative questions... somewhere in heaven.
Alan
Posted by Alan Barr at November 22, 2005 10:55 AM
Thanks Peter Drucker for being a constant inspiration to me throughout my professional life. Like Tom Peters I first met up with the written insights of Peter Drucker in the late 1960's. I did not always agree with what he wrote but I was always touched by the forthright way he put his view of the world. For me he summed it all up in his classic article "theory of the business". In that article Peter Drucker explained that there were just two questions to ask business people. 1) What business are you in? (I use this question as my opening gambit in most of my consulting gigs) 2) How's business? I have found that most people can not get past the first question. If they do get past the first question then the second question is almost irrelevant. Peter Drucker taught me a lot over four decades. Most importantly he taught me to keep re-inventing yourself, to find new ideas and things to pursue outside of your profession, and not to get too carried away by your inevitable 15 minutes of fame. Peter Drucker is a legend now - he lives on in the hearts and minds of old guys like Tom Peters and myself (who have lived with his influence for the past four decades or more) and young guys and gals who are just discoveing his relevance to their lives. The King is dead. Long live the King.
Richard.
Posted by Richard Lipscombe at November 22, 2005 7:28 PM
There are so many Drucker insights that I've been able to apply to my own business and career that it would be difficult to give a detailed list. Many of his insights have become common currency in the practice of management and we forget that they originated with or were best articulated by him. In my mind, what set Peter apart from so many gurus, writers and consultants was his emphasis on the moral responsibilities and character of executives. Peter Drucker and the 20th century had seen enough of charismatic leaders that lacked character or competence. Every age would do well to remember his admonition. I never met Mr. Drucker in person. From everything I've read about him, that is my loss.
Posted by Ron Blair at November 23, 2005 1:27 PM