Immortal Drucker
In 1927, while attending a conference, he was asked
what he feared the most. Peter Drucker responded,
"I am afraid of Hitler." Others laughed at him, because
Hitler had just suffered a resounding defeat. In 1942,
Drucker wrote that market stakeholders would become
as critical as nation stakeholders. Today, of the 100
largest economic entities in the world, as measured by GDP and revenue, 44 are countries and 56 are companies.
In 1947, Drucker wrote, "Management is leadership."
For the past 15 years, no single topic has received
more attention in the management domain. In 1954,
Drucker told his publisher 'management needs strategy'.
His publisher responded that "strategy" was a term for
war, not business n and it would put off readers. By
1975, the subject of strategy dominated top management
writings in journals and books. In 1985,he told Walter
Wriston, chairman of Citigroup, that the Berlin Wall
would fall. Wriston said that he would have dismissed it
if it had come from anyone but Drucker. In a conversation
in 1986, Drucker said that the Soviet Union would
collapse. Henry Kissinger responded, "You are wrong."
Drucker advised pioneers of different kinds of organisations - from Alfred P. Sloan of General Motors to Jack Welch of General Electric, among manufacturing companies, and from the Girl Scouts movement to the Myelin
Repair Foundation, among the non-profits. Over seven
decades, he reached a global audience with 39 books and
innumerable articles. Nobody has shaped modern management
as profoundly as Peter Ferdinand Drucker who stands head and shoulders above the rest, thanks to his integrity, scientific method, prescience, humility and wit.
Dr Elizabeth Haas Edersheim is a recognised strategy
consultant and industrial policy expert. She was apartner at McKinsey & Co. before starting her own
firm. Her biography of her mentor, the founder of
McKinsey, Marvin Bower, drew Drucker to invite her to
record his thoughts. For the first time, he gave another
writer unbridled access to his thoughts and work
before he died. In the Definitive Drucker: Challenges
for Tomorrow's Executives - Final Advice from the
Father of Modern Management, (Tata McGraw-Hill,
260p, Rs475) she captures Drucker's essential approach she captures Drucker's essential approach to management Science. You will enjoy reading the summaries of Drucker's philosophy, interactions with Alfred P. Sloan and Henry Luce; Google's golden rules; Druckerian perspectives and questions underscoring each chapter and section.
All these, along with the descriptions of Drucker's meetings, leave you touched by the man's Viennese charm, repartee, warmth and profundity.
- Udit Chaudhuri |
