Management for Inclusive Prosperity: How Do You Know?
by Lukas Michel

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In their inaugural article, Richard Straub and Julia Kirby concluded that managers must ‘make the most of human potential, and manage to make prosperity inclusive’. This sounds like what good management is all about. David Hurst’s article, then positioned management as a means to cultivate prosperity. He ends by quoting Clay Christensen ‘Management is the most noble of professions if practiced well’ suggesting management as an occupation that helps others learn, grow, take responsibility and contribute to team success. This is more about good management. And the scientific evidence is overwhelming: good management matters! But how do we know? As a manager, I would be interested in finding my own response or at least have […]

Open Innovation and Altruism
The fortunate combination that stimulates growth with inclusive prosperity
by Piero Formica

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Altruism perfectly fits in with inclusive prosperity. Open innovation (OI)-driven growth with knowledge, competencies, and skills freely exchanged across cultural groups is the zeitgeist of the 21st century, characterized as it is by its emphasis on the widest possible access to new knowledge and resources, producing beneficial effects in new entrepreneurial ventures. Emerging from this is a hybrid culture reflecting various strands of OI, in which altruism can be included together with open experimenting that can be unconventional. Stating that altruism is serving OI is tantamount to saying that altruism is a practical social innovation. Inward-looking, selfish organizations minimize cooperation and so stifle open innovation. Altruism opens up a promising prospect for an outward-looking approach […]

Management: a Noble Practice
by David Hurst

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The theme of the 2017 Global Drucker Forum to be held in Vienna later this year is “Growth & Inclusive Prosperity – The Secular Management Challenge”. Dictionary definitions of prosperity mention a condition of being successful or thriving, especially economic well-being – a desirable accompaniment of living. What’s the essence of living then? Three Viennese psychotherapists came up with three distinctly different answers: Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) claimed that it was the ‘will to pleasure’ Alfred Adler (1870-1937) argued that it was the ‘will to power’ Viktor Frankl (1905-1997) contended that it was the ‘will to meaning’ All of them have a kernel of truth, for it’s difficult to imagine humans flourishing without each of these […]

Meaningful Work Should Not Be a Privilege of the Elite
by Richard Straub & Julia Kirby

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It is hard for anyone to be against the idea of inclusive prosperity. Of course the bounty produced by economic growth should be broadly shared. But the devil is in the details, and when people advocate for inclusive growth they don’t always have the same things in mind. Some, for example, are inspired by Thomas Piketty, who seems to have singlehandedly set a new agenda for economics research. This group focuses on reducing the disturbing inequalities in individuals’ incomes and wealth. Others, like the Legatum Institute, think of prosperity less in financial terms and more as overall well-being, and focus on measuring and growing all its components in societies around the world. A third group […]

The Coming of the Entrepreneurial Kid
by Khuyen Bui

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Fifteen year ago, David Brooks described a specific kind of young people in an essay titled “The Organization Kid”. They were the highest achievers of American top universities. In his words, “their [schedules] sounded like a session of Future Workaholics of America: crew practice at dawn, classes in the morning, resident-adviser duty, lunch, study groups, classes in the afternoon, tutoring disadvantaged kids in Trenton, a cappella practice, dinner, study, science lab, prayer session, hit the StairMaster, study a few hours more… […] They are goal-oriented. An activity — whether it is studying, hitting the treadmill, drama group, community service, or one of the student groups they found and join in great numbers — is rarely an end in itself. It […]

Does Your Workplace Encourage Entrepreneurial Behavior?
by Sara Armbruster

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As leaders of our organizations we’re facing unprecedented challenges. The pace of work has accelerated. We’re constantly under a deluge of information and expected to rapidly shift between various contexts throughout the day. Our schedules are more fragmented and span multiple time zones. As a result, a loss of connection with people across our organizations is a frequent casualty. And we’re experiencing heightened demand to be more agile, innovative and growth-oriented. As the business world is changing, so should the way we lead. The concept of “The Entrepreneurial Society,” which I had the pleasure of deeply contemplating and discussing at the recent Drucker Forum, offers guidance for leaders today (though Peter Drucker saw it coming […]

“Do you have a value-creation playbook?” “No.”
by Curtis R. Carlson

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The Drucker Forum, led by Richard Straub, is one of the world’s most important conferences on innovation and entrepreneurship. It honours Peter Drucker, the genius who laid the foundations for modern management.  Each November it is held in Vienna, Austria where Peter Drucker was born in 1909.  Many of the world’s thought leaders and practitioners are there to share progress on these increasingly important topics. During my talk, “Creating an Innovative Enterprise,” I asked the 500 participants if their staff were given a value-creation playbook along with innovation training so they could be effective value creators.  Only 5 people raised their hands.  (My presentation is here:  drucker-forum.) This is a striking result given the quality of the […]

Seeing the World with Fresh Eyes
by Kenneth Mikkelsen

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In April 2012, Hans Joergen Wiberg presented an unusual idea at a startup event in Denmark. Wilberg, being visually impaired, had identified an opportunity to help blind people cope with everyday tasks. This relied on mobile phone cameras and connecting the blind with sighted volunteers. His simple idea caught on. Today, the Be My Eyes app pairs more than 30,000 blind people with nearly 400,000 sighted helpers globally. What if it were possible to equip modern leaders with a similar set of fresh eyes? What would they see? Could unexpected discoveries make them abandon current constructs of the world?   Leaders, like anyone else, are habitual beings that protect their worldview and the meaning they […]