“I don’t predict. I just look out the window and see what’s visible but not yet seen.”
– Peter F. Drucker
the window
Jan-Feb 2012
The newsletter of
www.DruckerInstitute.com
From the Archives
Peter Drucker prods executives
at a big investment bank to ask,
“What should our business be?”
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Thousands of university
students in China learn about
effectiveness, Drucker style
When Your Replacement’s
Name Is HAL:
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The most popular Dx post in the past 30 days
Letter from Claremont
The problem with much of
management education today—and, in
turn, with the way that many businesses
are run—is that “we don’t teach the
Austrian Peter Drucker; we teach the
Austrian von Hayek.”
So declared Harvard’s Rakesh Khurana,
speaking late last year in Vienna, the
birthplace of both Drucker and economist
Friedrich von Hayek. The Nobel Prize-winner
von Hayek has had a huge influence on
making “the maximization of shareholder
value” a central tenet of corporate
management over the past 35 years.
Whether you agree with Khurana or
not, his address at the 3rd Global Peter
Drucker Forum helped frame one of the
most provocative discussions we’ve heard
in a long time. Driving the two-day event
was this question: How can management
regain its legitimacy in society?
Among those offering up answers was
Mark Kramer, who urged the hundreds of
people in attendance to shift the focus from
“shareholder value” to “shared value”—a
principle that calls on companies to solve
social problems as part of their core
business strategy.
Meanwhile, K.H. Moon, the former CEO
of Yuhan-Kimberly, provided insights on
how he made the Korean consumer-products
company truly people-centered,
established trust up and down the supply
chain and turned the organization into a
hothouse of lifelong learning.
And Deepa Prahalad proposed that
companies innovate at the bottom of the
pyramid, where managers can “re-imagine
their role as agents of change.”
As we embark on a new year of fresh
possibilities, all of these ideas continue to
bounce around in our heads. How about
you? How do you think we can we make the
world a little more Drucker-like in 2012?
Rick Wartzman and Zach First
Executive Director and Managing Director
The Drucker Institute is an entity of Claremont Graduate University, located at 1021 North Dartmouth Avenue, Claremont, California 91711.
p. 2 p. 2
Local Links
How people around the world are bettering their
communities by applying Peter Drucker’s ideas
With China poised to
become the world’s largest
economy, Drucker Societies
are doing their part to make
sure that the Asian giant
moves forward in a way that
is effective and responsible.
Based at 43 universities
in 20 cities across China, the
Societies seek to “improve
the competence and values of future
Chinese managers,” said Winny Dong, CEO
of the China Drucker Association. “They
help students to learn and live Drucker.”
Since 2007, the Drucker Societies in
China have worked with more than 60,000
university students, including some 14,000
in its Campus Facilitator project. Through
this train-the-trainer program, Drucker
Society student leaders are certified in
teaching key Drucker lessons about
“running effective meetings . . . delegating
authority and managing oneself,” explained
Dong’s colleague Shuoshuo
Bian. The Drucker Society
student facilitators then share
these insights with leaders
from other student
associations at their
universities. The “innovative,
student-centered seminars,”
according to Dong, include
analyses of Drucker’s books,
exercises in experiential learning and online
follow-up forums.
More than 90 certified Drucker Society
Campus Facilitators have hosted 450 events
in the two years since the initiative began.
“It is important to learn Drucker,” said Xu
Xinxing, one of the certified facilitators, “to
become a more effective executive . . . [and]
to treat people with honesty, humbleness,
courtesy, and integrity.”
As a result of the program, Xu added,
she now knows how to “utilize the right
people to do the right things.”
University students participate
in a Drucker Societies of China
management training session
Check out our monthly radio
show, “Drucker on the Dial,”
where timely issues meet
timeless principles.
Podcast [iTunes U]
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The Drucker Institute’s
Rick Wartzman writes a
column for Bloomberg
Businessweek online that
ties Peter Drucker’s work
to today’s headlines.
Read the latest.
From the Archives
Peter Drucker once remarked that “my
greatest strength as a consultant is to be
ignorant and ask a few questions.”
It was a self-deprecating quip. But it
also contained a grain of truth. One can see
his basic approach come to life in a 1974
letter that Drucker wrote to Donaldson,
Lufkin & Jenrette.
Drucker had recently met with the
principals of the U.S.-based investment
banking firm when he penned this missive
as a follow-up.
As an adviser and friend to DLJ for
15 years, Drucker knew that the firm had
attained its initial objectives, and it was
time to look toward other opportunities
for growth.
Drucker pointed out that a company
can easily be tempted to redouble its efforts
after it has met its original goals. But “the
right strategy,” he believed “is to say:
‘Having attained our objectives, we now
have to re-think new ones.’”
Indeed, at this point, “the right
question to ask is: ‘What should our
business be?’”
“I shall not attempt to answer the
question what your business should be,”
Drucker added. "First, one should not
answer such a question off the top of one’s
head. . . . Secondly, one man’s opinion, no
matter how brilliant, is at best one man’s
opinion.”
Besides, said Drucker, “I can only ask
questions. The answers have to be yours.”
Peter Drucker’s 1974 consulting letter to
Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette executives.
“Having attained our objectives,” he wrote,
“we now have to re-think new ones.”
