an affiliate of the drucker and ito graduate school of management
Rick Wartzman, director of the
Drucker Institute, writes a bimonthly
column for BusinessWeek that ties
Peter Drucker’s work to today’s
headlines. Read more here.
Rick’s recent Drucker Difference columns:
• Dusting Off a Managing Tome April 24, 2008
• Peter Drucker's Winning Team April 10, 2008
• Drucker and the Complexities of Race March 27, 2008
• Buffett's Plan for Successful Succession March 13, 2008
Letter from Claremont
The Drucker Institute is
hitting the road.
After six months of
development, we’ve taken the
wraps off a slide show that we
hope will, over time, help do for
management what Al Gore’s An
Inconvenient Truth has done for
environmental stewardship.
Our show focuses on what
we’ve dubbed “ the
Responsibility Gap,” the gulf
between our obligations— to be
effective managers and ethical
leaders— and our actions. It is
the gap between what we know
and what we do; between what
we have and how we deliver
what we have; between what
we’ve inherited from the prior
generation and what we will
leave behind for our children.
Evidence of the
Responsibility Gap is all around
us. In each issue of our
newsletter, we’ve included a fact
or figure that illustrates the
Gap. ( See “ The Evidence” on the
next page.) Some of this data
may already be familiar to you.
Almost as startling as the
numbers themselves, though, is
that we can turn the tide on
many looming challenges—
from water- borne illnesses to
wasted time at work— through
better care of our institutions,
our resources and our people.
Peter Drucker was the
foremost thinker of our time
about how effective people and
responsible organizations can
build a healthy society. And he
inspired generations of leaders
— from A. G. Lafley at Procter &
Gamble and John Bachmann at
Edward Jones to Cesar Chavez
at the United Farm Workers
and Frances Hesselbein at the
Girl Scouts— to do the hard
work of figuring out how sound
“ The Drucker Difference” on BusinessWeek. com
Drucker Society Spotlight
How Drucker Societies worldwide are
advancing ethical leadership and
effective management.
Peter Drucker lived a life that
transcended borders: He grew up in
Austria, studied in Germany, worked
in England, settled in the U. S., and
consulted around the world. His 39
books have been published in 20
languages, from Arabic to
Vietnamese.
From his humble home in
Claremont, Calif., Drucker planted
the seeds of a global transformation
in the understanding and practice of
management. Thanks to the
Drucker Societies, the fruits of those
seeds will soon be on display in
Claremont at the Second Annual
Drucker Society Global Symposium.
The event promises to be equal
parts family reunion and strategy
think tank. About 100
representatives from more than a
Continued on the next page
Continued on the next page
claremont graduate university
For more about the Drucker Institute, the Drucker Societies, and how you can get involved, visit us online at
www. DRUCKERinstitute. com.
1021 n dartmouth ave, claremont, ca 91711
THE WINDOW “ I don’t predict. I just look out the window and see what’s visible but not yet seen.”
— Peter F. Drucker
The newsletter of the Drucker Institute www. druckerinstitute. com May/ June 2008
an affiliate of the drucker and ito graduate school of management
Rick Wartzman and Zach First
Director and Assistant Director
The Evidence
The need for ethical
leadership and effective
management— that is, the
need for Peter Drucker’s
principles and practices— has
never been greater.
On average, 31% of
private- sector working time
around the world is effectively
wasted. Three- quarters of
this wasted time is a
result of poor planning
and management.
Source: Proudfoot Consulting
FROM THE ARCHIVES
In 1981, an ambitious and
talented VP at General Electric was
tapped to succeed Reginald Jones
as chairman and CEO. At 36, Jack
Welch became the youngest head
of the storied company since 31-
year- old Thomas Edison first hung
out his shingle in 1878.
Despite a long history of
success, GE then faced the serious
challenge of finding a place in the
new knowledge economy. And so
shortly after Welch took office, the
young chairman called on Peter
Drucker— who coined the term
“ knowledge worker” in 1959— for a
little advice.
During a visit to
GE’s headquarters,
Drucker asked two
questions: “ If you
weren't already in a
business, would you
enter it today? And if
the answer is no, what
are you going to do
about it?”
As Welch later recounted for a
2005 BusinessWeek cover story on
Drucker, those questions led him
“ to his first big transformative
idea: that every business under the
GE umbrella had to be either No. 1
or No. 2 in its class... It was the
core strategy that helped Welch
remake GE into one of the most
successful American corporations
of the past 25 years.”
In 1998, three years before the
end of his 20- year tenure, Welch
sent Drucker a handwritten note
of thanks. Praising Drucker’s
“ vision and candor,” Welch
concluded, “ Much of what we’ve
been able to do here [ at GE] has
come out of your thinking.”
dozen countries— spanning
Asia, North and South America,
Europe and Africa— will meet
in June to take stock of the
Drucker legacy and plan for the
next stage of its growth.
Founding Drucker Societies
will share their expertise in
programs ranging from CEO
roundtables to college forums.
The newest Societies will offer
their own additions to this
constellation of good work.
Among them: using Drucker to
tackle local challenges and
hosting an international
conference on human- centric
management in the 21st
Century.
Drucker wrote that
“ knowledge has to be improved,
challenged, and increased
constantly or it vanishes.”
Thanks to the global network of
Drucker Societies, Drucker’s
ideals live on, and there will be
no disappearing act.
Society Spotlight, cont’d
management, often more than a far- off sci- fi technology, can solve
serious problems.
We’ve baked wisdom from Drucker and other leading thinkers into
our show. We’ve refined it while delivering it nearly two dozen times to
groups across Southern California, from Chambers of Commerce to
county sheriffs to social entrepreneurs. The show is interactive, with a
wrap- up that focuses on how your organization can help close the
Responsibility Gap.
As Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize- winning founder of
Grameen Bank, has said: “ Our problem is one of management, not
lack of resources.”
If you’d like to bring the Responsibility Gap show to your next
event, send us an email at contact@ druckerinstitute. com.
Letter from Claremont, cont’d
The newsletter of the Drucker Institute www. druckerinstitute. com May/ June 2008
