is an affiliate of the drucker school of management
We’ve always had a strong
sense that Peter Drucker’s words
amount to a kind of universal
language, one that transcends
countries and cultures. But at no
time has this notion come through
more clearly than it did during a
recent trip to Vietnam.
The Drucker Institute was
invited to take part in the Ascending
Dragon Music Festival and Cultural
Exchange, a State Department-sponsored
initiative that marked the
1,000th anniversary of the founding
of Hanoi and the 15th anniversary of
the normalization of relations
between the U. S. and Vietnam.
Ascending Dragon was
spearheaded by Southwest Chamber
Music, a Grammy Award- winning
ensemble based in Pasadena,
California. The program that
Southwest put together with the
Vietnam National Academy of Music
included four world- premier concerts
in Vietnam and 17 U. S. premiers.
Yet Southwest wanted to do
more than simply make music— and
this is where we came in.
As part of Ascending Dragon,
we were asked to help the National
Academy learn how to be a more
effective arts organization. To that
end, we worked closely with the
Academy’s administrators and
musicians— some of whom are
poised to be the institution’s future
leaders.
During a wonderful week in
Hanoi, we introduced them to Peter
Drucker’s leadership philosophy,
stressing that integrity and results
matter much more than force of
personality or charisma. Leadership
is “ mundane, unromantic and
boring,” Drucker declared. “ Its
essence is performance.”
A few weeks later, the
Vietnamese musicians visited
Claremont, where we shared
Drucker’s teachings on honing the
Rick Wartzman, executive director of
the Drucker Institute, writes a column for
Bloomberg Businessweek online that ties
Peter Drucker’s work to today’s headlines.
For a list of all of his columns, click here.
Rick’s recent “ Drucker Difference” columns:
• Reflecting on Prahalad Reflecting on Drucker Apr 23, 2010
• Japanese Baseball and Management Revelations Apr 13, 2010
• The Service Sector Snag Mar 19, 2010
• Toyota’s Management Challenge Mar 5, 2010
Letter from Claremont
“ The Drucker Difference” on Bloomberg Businessweek
Drucker Society Spotlight
How Drucker Societies worldwide are
advancing effective management and
responsible leadership.
The Drucker Society Global Network
has lost a good friend.
Management scholar C. K. Prahalad
died on April 16 after a brief illness.
A professor at the University of
Michigan, Prahalad served as a consultant
to some of the world’s leading companies.
In his pathbreaking book The Fortune at
the Bottom of the Pyramid, he championed
the view that the world’s poor represented
a tremendous, untapped market— worth
perhaps as much as $ 13 trillion.
He also wrote on matters of corporate
strategy, innovation, and the role of what
he called the “ responsible manager.”
“ Leadership,” Prahalad asserted, “ is about
self- awareness, recognizing your failings,
and developing modesty, humility and
humanity.”
Prahalad’s loss will be most keenly
felt by the Drucker Society of Europe on
Continued on the next page Continued on the next page
claremont graduate university
rucker Apps 2.0 is a new social- media tool that ties Drucker’s timeless wisdom to the hottest issues of today.
Right now, readers are talking about common educational standards and about the Goldman Sachs scandal.
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— Peter F. Drucker
The newsletter of the Drucker Institute www. druckerinstitute. com May/ June 2010
is an affiliate of the drucker school of management
organization’s mission, creating value for one’s customers, identifying results and
forging plans for action. The exchange was rich: Our guests were stimulated by
Drucker’s ideas, and eager to put them into practice when they returned home. And
we learned a lot about one of the most dynamic countries in the world.
In between our time in Hanoi and the workshop in Claremont, meanwhile, we
saw people come together around another universal language: music. As part of
our Drucker Centennial celebration, we hosted a South Korean social enterprise
called noridan, which takes discarded bicycles, scrap metal and other unwanted
items and recycles them into musical instruments.
During a forum with students and faculty, a public instrument- making
workshop and a festive parade through campus, noridan ( winners of a major social
innovation award from the Drucker Society of Korea), imparted lessons on
sustainability, arts education, job creation and leadership— sweet sounds all
around.
Rick Wartzman and Zach First
Executive Director and Managing Director
Learn more about the
Drucker Management Path at
www. DruckerUnpacked. com.
At the Drucker Institute, we strive
to inspire others to turn ideas into
action. In doing so, we are taking a page
out of Drucker’s book— literally.
An item newly acquired by the
Drucker Archives is the original
typescript acknowledgments for
Drucker’s 1973 classic
Management: Tasks,
Responsibilities, Practices.
In this never- before-published
piece, Drucker draws a
sharp contrast between his 1954
book, The Practice of
Management, and his latest work.
“ The purpose of The Practice
of Management was to make
managers think about
management,” he wrote. “ This of
course is also one aim of the
present book. But above all the
present book aims at motivating
managers to act. The focus of the
present book is not on knowledge
alone. It is on performance and
responsibility.”
As it happened, these words
did not make it into the final version of
Management. But this spirit clearly
infuses the entire book— and it
continues to power our action- oriented
focus here at the Institute.
whose Scientific Advisory Board
Prahalad had agreed to serve.
Richard Straub, the head of the
newly formed, European- wide
Society, described Prahalad and
Drucker as being “ in total unity” in
their “ understanding of management
as a concern for society” as a whole.
Straub noted that Prahalad had
“ provided a new perspective on
alleviating poverty and thus given an
invaluable impetus to change
people’s lives for the better.”
Among Prahalad’s last major
public events prior to his passing
was the presentation he made at the
Drucker Society of Austria’s Global
Drucker Forum held last November in
Vienna. During the forum, Prahalad
challenged his academic colleagues
to be more Drucker- like by
strengthening their connection to the
realm of practice.
To watch Prahalad’s speech in
its entirety and to share a
remembrance of this remarkable
man, please click here.
Society Spotlight, cont’d
Letter from Claremont, cont’d
The newsletter of the Drucker Institute www. druckerinstitute. com May/ June 2010
FROM THE ARCHIVES
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