The newsletter of the Drucker Institute www. druckerinstitute. com Mar/ Apr 2008
claremont graduate university
THE WINDOW “ I don’t predict. I just look out the window and see what’s visible but not yet seen.”
– Peter F. Drucker
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:
• What Can Microsoft Offer Yahoo? Feb 14, 2008
• Muhammad Yunus: The Unlikely Disciple Jan 31, 2008
• Wikia's People- Powered Engine Jan 17, 2008
• Getting from Giving Dec 27, 2007
Letter from Claremont
“ This is the curve of life,”
declared Charles Handy,
Distinguished Drucker Scholar
in Residence, during a recent
public lecture in Claremont.
“ This is the curve of
everything.”
Indeed, this little wave can
describe the life cycle of a
product, the ups and downs of a
political candidate, the ebb and
flow of a business— even the
story of one’s own life.
But all life need not be
measured by a single rise and
fall. “ You can maybe have a
second curve, and a third
curve,” Handy explained.
The trick, he said, is that
“ you have to choose the next
curve before the first curve
peaks so that you have enough
resources coming in to
experiment... because it always
takes about two years from the
beginning of a new curve until
the point where it transcends
the peak of the old.”
Trouble is, too many people
and organizations fail to seek
new curves until it’s too late. As
Handy put it: “ They wait until
they see death staring them in
the face before they start trying
to find their next curve.”
The central dilemma of the
curve of life is, in other words,
“ The Drucker Difference” on BusinessWeek. com
Drucker Society Spotlight
How Drucker Societies worldwide are
advancing ethical leadership and
effective management.
We asked Lee Igel, founder of
the new Drucker Society of New
York City, what inspired him to
launch the group late last year. It’s
about the past, he said. It’s a way to
honor his grandparents, Holocaust
survivors who came to America and
never let their grandson forget that
Peter Drucker was one of the first to
recognize the full scope of Hitler’s
evil. ( See related article, “ From the
Archives,” on the next page.)
Yet Igel’s work is also about the
future. It’s for the students in his
courses at NYU who need more
opportunities to learn about Drucker
“ because his enormous body of
work is the starting point and the
definitive source for what they need
to know to be effective in their work
for the rest of their lives.”
Continued on the next page
Continued on the next page
an affiliate of the peter f. drucker and masatoshi ito graduate school of management
For more about the Drucker Institute, the Drucker Societies, and how you can get involved, visit us online at
www. DRUCKERinstitute. com.
The newsletter of the Drucker Institute www. druckerinstitute. com Mar/ Apr 2008
claremont graduate university
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.
Worldwide, 2.6 billion people go
without sanitation, 1.1 billion
people lack clean water, and
1.8 million
kids die every year as a result.
“ The real crisis, experts say, is
not a lack of water but
a lack of water management.”
Source: U. S. News & World Report
FROM THE ARCHIVES
On June 5, 1943, Nazi U- boats
were terrorizing the North
Atlantic, tanks were rumbling
across North Africa, D- Day
planning was underway, and Peter
Drucker was thinking about food.
“ Nothing is so productive of
internal hatred,” Drucker wrote in
The Saturday Evening Post, “ as a
black market for food on which
those with money can buy while
the poor have to go hungry.”
Drucker saw the Nazis
creating artificial food shortages
across Europe, encouraging
exorbitant black markets for basic
staples, and he knew that more
than hunger was at stake.
Starvation, inflation, and
ethnic conflict would be, in the
words of an American monetary
expert Drucker cited, the “ land
mines which are to cover
Germany’s retreat.”
“ The real Nazi offensive,”
Drucker concluded, “[ is] against
the future.” He saw that their
legacy would outlast the horrors of
the present by spurring a
generation or more of mistrust,
alienation, and civil unrest.
Drucker did see one bright
spot, though, in the Nazi’s wake.
He thought the fear of a post- war
economic collapse might
encourage Europeans to repair
their broken ties and pursue “ close
continental economic
collaboration.” With that, we can
add the E. U. to the future that
Drucker saw out his window.
The Drucker Society of
NYC includes both Drucker
experts and neophytes. “ The
common denominator,” Igel
said, “ is an interest in building
community by thinking
through, understanding and
applying Drucker's principles.”
Igel recalled that members
quickly “ came together on a
discussion about mission—
What needs doing?” The
answer, they agreed, was to put
Drucker's principles into
action.
The group is now exploring
how well their public schools
are preparing the next
generation of knowledge
workers ( a term Drucker coined
in 1959) and what the Drucker
Society can do to help. Concrete
plans are still taking shape. But
this much is clear: Theirs is, as
Drucker wrote, a belief
“ in responsibility... grounded in
competence and compassion.”
Society Spotlight, cont’d
knowing when to get off in time to prepare for the second curve.
Here at the Drucker Institute we are well into our first curve, which
is taking us from being strictly an archive into a think tank and “ action
tank.” We’ve run conferences, published articles, launched new
research projects, seeded Drucker Societies around the world, and
begun to market a comprehensive Drucker curriculum. And we’re
building capacity to do even more of this work in 2008.
But we know we can’t stop there. Our real aim is to evolve from a
beehive of activity into the hub of a full- fledged global movement that
sparks effective management and ethical leadership across society. Our
ambitions are big. Getting there won’t be easy; we still have many years
of hard work ahead. But thanks in part to Charles Handy’s wisdom,
we’re already seeking our second curve.
Letter from Claremont, cont’d
1021 n dartmouth ave, claremont, ca 91711
Rick Wartzman and Zach First
Director and Assistant Director
