is an affiliate of the drucker school of management
In any organization, Peter
Drucker taught, “a fundamental
responsibility of leadership is to
make sure that everybody knows the
mission, understands it, lives it.”
Here at the Drucker Institute, we
take these words seriously. Yet
we’ve also learned that you’ve got to
start by getting the mission right.
Our original mission statement
was to take Peter Drucker’s ideas
and ideals to new audiences in new
ways. Over time, though, we realized
that this failed to meet Drucker’s
own definition of a good mission.
So, in June 2008, our Board of
Advisors approved a change. Our
new mission: to stimulate effective
management and ethical leadership
across all sectors of society.
This revised language certainly
was a more accurate reflection of
two elements that Drucker identified
as crucial. First, it captured our
opportunity—namely, to
“stimulate” organizations to become
better managed. Our job, in other
words, is to be a catalyst for others
to act. Second, it signaled our
competence; we’d developed a
slate of programs to enhance the
management of companies,
nonprofits and government agencies.
What’s more, by not mentioning
Drucker, the new mission also made
clear that we’re not just lighting a
candle to an individual.
But over time, we recognized
that we were still missing Drucker’s
third ingredient: commitment—that
is, what we’re really passionate
about. For what drives us is a deep
desire to create a better society.
Management and leadership are just
means to this noble end.
So last month, the Institute
Board again OKed an update of our
mission statement. It now reads: to
better society by stimulating
effective management and
responsible leadership.
Rick Wartzman, executive director of
the Drucker Institute, writes a bimonthly
column for 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:
• Women and the Knowledge-Work Trend Feb 19, 2010
• Insourcing and Outsourcing: the Right Mix Feb 5, 2010
• A Lesson in Performance Metrics Jan 22, 2010
• Big Solutions Should Start Small Jan 8, 2010
Letter from Claremont
“The Drucker Difference” on BusinessWeek.com
Drucker Society Spotlight
How Drucker Societies worldwide are
advancing effective management and
responsible leadership.
Figuring out what the customer
values “may be the most important
question” an organization can explore,
Peter Drucker declared, “yet it is the one
least often asked.”
Armed with our new mission (see
“Letter from Claremont”), we have set out
to make sure we ask it. Among our goals
is to more deeply understand what the
volunteers in our Drucker Society Global
Network value—so that we can deliver
the programs they’re looking for.
Feedback gathered from a couple of
our newer Societies—in South Carolina
and Minnesota—reveals that many
members joined not because they knew
Drucker’s work. Some, in fact, had never
even heard of Drucker before a friend
asked them to get involved.
Rather, “the value for me,” wrote a
member of the South Carolina Society, is
gaining “personal insight, growth and
Continued on the next page Continued on the next page
claremont graduate university
Read how some of America's leading executives—including Costco’s Jim Sinegal and Teach for America’s
Wendy Kopp—are putting Drucker to work in this snapshot from the 2009 Drucker CEO Forum.
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 Mar/Apr 2010
is an affiliate of the drucker school of management
What’s amazing is that, from this latest change, we’ve now come to see that
we’ve been missing what could be a huge and highly receptive audience: those
who are eager to “better society” and would likely embrace Drucker’s precepts to
help them do so—if only they knew about his work.
So, how do we hook them? We believe that one key is to overhaul our social-media
tool, Drucker Apps. Until now, Apps has been used to transmit information:
provocative excerpts from Drucker’s writing linked to something in the news.
Soon, though, we will unveil Drucker Apps 2.0. With new interactive features,
it will foster a dialogue among our readers, the Institute and outside experts.
Rather than just broadcasting information, we want to be a connector and create a
forum for turning ideas into action. We think that this will be an excellent way to
learn more about our customers (and what Drucker called our “noncustomers”)—
what they’re interested in and what we can provide that’s of real value to them.
Rick Wartzman and Zach First
Executive Director and Managing Director
Learn more about the
Drucker Management Path at
www.DruckerUnpacked.com.
The great baseball skipper Earl
Weaver once observed, “A manager’s
job is simple. For 162 games you try not
to screw up all that smart stuff your
organization did last December.”
There was not, however, much
“smart stuff” for the 1986 Cleveland
Indians to build on. Their ’85 season had
been one of the worst in history, with a
60-102 won-loss record, dismal
attendance and an operating loss of
about $4.5 million.
Peter Bavasi, the ball club’s then-president,
set out in search of smarts
that could help the team. He contacted
Peter Drucker who, it
turned out, was not only a
baseball fan but also a
student of the game.
“Drucker consulted
by probing, asking layers
of questions,” Bavasi
recalls, “our answers to
which began to reveal
new ways of approaching
old problems.” Those
questions touched on
every level of the organization, from
ticket sales to the bullpen.
When asked how to deal with one
player whose performance had long
been erratic, Drucker dissected the
player’s statistics. Calling him “a
regressive personality,” Drucker advised
the team that, “there is only one thing
you can do. You really should consider
trading this man as soon as you can.”
In 1986, the Indians won 84 games
—their best record in 18 years—
attendance more than doubled and the
team earned its first profit in more than
30 years.
In this postcard mailed
from Tokyo, Drucker wrote
to Bavasi: “This is the
greatest turnaround in
baseball history—my
congratulations and
admiration!”
With Opening Day
2010 almost upon us, it’s
too bad Weaver’s Orioles
don’t have Drucker to call
upon now.
understanding” as a manager. The
president of a manufacturing firm, he
is discovering that Drucker’s writings
are a huge help in this. In particular,
Drucker is teaching him how to
better manage his time in a job that
“moves at 100 miles an hour.”
In Minnesota, Society leader
Von Peterson found that his group is
made up not of longtime Drucker
fans, but of people interested in
bringing positive change to their
community. So he started a reading
group to infuse their plans for action
with Drucker’s timeless wisdom.
Reading Drucker, one member
said, “helped us realize how we
could link...back to our goal” of
giving students in a local business
school the tools they need to be
responsible managers.
We’re hearing our customers
loud and clear: Drucker is not the
end. (Making a better society is.)
And he need not be the beginning,
either. But he is indispensable for
getting from here to there.
Society Spotlight, cont’d
Letter from Claremont, cont’d
The newsletter of the Drucker Institute www.druckerinstitute.com Mar/Apr 2010
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