Download A time to rediscover Peter Drucker by Richard Straub
On November 19, 2009 it will be 100 years since Peter F Drucker was born in Vienna – then capital of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. Drucker passed away three years ago, on November 11, 2005, in Claremont, California. He is generally referred to as the “father of modern management”. Yet, it appears that his importance as someone who thought about management in a broader social perspective is not widely understood. In today’s increasingly complex and crisis-ridden world we need that orientation more than ever.
This is why Drucker put all his energy into making management a better instrument to help executives fulfil this responsibility. This meant to move management from a mere incidental practice towards a well defined, systematic and organised “discipline”. But the development of modern management is also the story of Drucker’s own rising disenchantment with capitalism, which in the late 20th century seemed to reward greed as easily as it did performance. He was sickened by the excessive riches awarded to mediocre executives even as they slashed the ranks of ordinary workers. Today we can relate all too well to a statement he made in an interview given in the late 1980s. “In the next economic downturn there will be an outbreak of bitterness and contempt for the super-corporate chieftains who pay themselves millions.”
Taken From
Global Focus - The Challenge of the Present
The latest issue of Global Focus is now available. Highlights include:
- Chinese companies go global,
- The challenge of the present,
- Top rank,
- A dual strategy for European business schools,
- Reaching out – coming home: a time to rediscover Peter F Drucker,
- How culture can make sense of management
... and more.
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