The topic of the Drucker Forum is relevant to ongoing efforts to advance Drucker\u2019s body of work.<\/p>\n
The body of work can be looked at using a Drucker lens for managing during periods of discontinuity.<\/p>\n
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Peter Drucker projected that \u201cWe face long years of profound changes.\u201d (Management Challenges for the 21<\/i>st<\/i> Century<\/i>, 1999.) During these periods one should identify things that change and things that exhibit continuity. That way we avoid the temptation of throwing everything old out during periods of radical change.<\/p>\n
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By the end of the 20th Century significant changes were already underway. These changes have caused me to restructure my work to try to stay ahead of change. I have used FIVE principles and practices in Drucker\u2019s work on \u201cManaging Oneself\u201d to managing myself.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The three principles are:<\/p>\n
Knowing oneself by knowing one\u2019s<\/p>\n
AND<\/p>\n
The two practices are<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I worked and taught from 1962 to 2013, applying a good deal of Drucker\u2019s material. For most of this time the emphasis was on formal systems within the organizational hierarchy. But by the early 1990s, it became absolutely clear that information technology was facilitating the flattening of organizations as well as the widespread use of teams, and the extensive practice of six-sigma quality systems.<\/p>\n
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My study of leading edge U.S. manufacturing firms demonstrated that a substitution was occurring from manual workers to information technologists. In a few of these organizations the use of teams, empowerment, and the flattening of organizations was very old news! It was already a part of the culture.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The big error during this transition was to throw the \u201cbaby out with the bath water.\u201d\u00a0 Control was still necessary to pursue and achieve desirable results [i.e., continuity] and empowerment only worked when workers were trained to accept more responsibility. But the manner of achieving control in flat organizations is different than it is in hierarchical organizations.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The mechanisms for coordinating work teams for knowledge work rely heavily on recruiting specific talent appropriate for a given team; and on establishing input, process and result measures such as informal relationships, mission, and values, and expected results for each team.<\/p>\n
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At the same time in many kinds of manufacturing and service work operational steps to\u00a0fulfil objectives are fairly well established and workers require less discretion. \u00a0Information and control systems can be designed to focus more heavily on result variables, including quality.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The second example is virtual teams whose members are spread out across the world. These teams are focused on the same task, for the same or similar products but in different markets. This is what Drucker calls the \u201csystems structure.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The great strength of the systems structure is the ability it provides individuals\u00a0to adapt to local conditions. The weakness is the demand for continuous and intense communication placed on leaders and members which requires developing strong interpersonal relations. There is sometimes ambiguity\u00a0about\u00a0how to resolve workplace difficulties and disputes in this structure.<\/p>\n
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The third example pertains to Peter Drucker\u2019s work. He projected that ten years after his death,\u00a0in\u00a02005, his body of knowledge would not be relevant. \u00a0That was clearly an overstatement. But, in 2015, we have experienced this to some extent. The reasons are in part the impact of the digital revolution including the rise in e-commerce, the growth of social media together with continued globalization and the emergence of new economic powers, in particular the European Union, China and India.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The US while still possessing military and political superiority, no longer possess clear economic superiority, just as Drucker projected.<\/p>\n
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Soon after Peter Drucker\u2019s death I began to assume that he was correct in his assessment of the durability of his work, because he had spent fifty years tracking the knowledge and information economy and he knew the trends. \u00a0The digital age would not have surprised him.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This changed my work as I continue to work to extend his legacy. \u00a0Most importantly, I thought it was necessary to understand the methodology that he used and the vision that he worked toward [contained in our Drucker\u2019s Lost Art of Management<\/i>, 2011], and his process of mentoring executives toward that vision [contained in A Year with Peter Drucker<\/i>].<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The late Kenneth G. Wilson, 1982 Nobel Laureate in Physics, and a twenty-year reader of Drucker\u2019s work, reminded me that the work of some prominent scientists lies dormant for centuries because of the lack of systematic attention to uncovering the underlying methodology and extending the work.<\/p>\n
Drucker\u2019s worldview and his work on managing people and organizations showed that people have their own fingerprint of potential placed there by the creator. \u00a0Most durable organizations develop people both intellectually and morally. This is a foundational assumption that underlies Drucker\u2019s work and carries forward into the twenty-first century. It explains to a significant extent why Drucker called Management a \u201cHuman Activity\u201d and a \u201cLiberal Art.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In contrast we also know that the topic of effective decision-making occupies a major portion of his book The Effective Executive<\/i>. That is not going to change. \u00a0Yet executive decision-making is more complex when power relationships, political realities, and other constraints are imposed upon decision-making.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cloud Computing, \u201cbig data,\u201d and data mining are becoming essential elements of complex executive decision-making. Additionally, information technology has made significant progress in a number of areas that impinge on Drucker\u2019s life work.<\/p>\n
Artificial Intelligence assists executives in moving from data to information literacy, a major Drucker topic.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There are many digital tools available to help organize tasks, capture and share information with colleagues to improving effectiveness, and tools to identify strengths to help people know who they are, and where their talents can be best applied.<\/p>\n
The decision-making framework in Drucker\u2019s book is based upon excellent practice. Like Drucker, I also have found that historical analysis of the decisions of great leaders adds granularity to the decision making framework; deals with managing power and politics in organizations; and helps us to move forward in our overall understanding of executive decision making.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Drucker\u2019s The Effective Executive<\/i> remains one of the foundation books on leadership and management and, along with his The Practice of Management<\/i> and Innovation and Entrepreneurship<\/i>, is likely to continue to hold its status despite the need to add material, and to bring the subjects into the digital age<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This is a timely topic for the Forum.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
About the author:<\/strong><\/p>\n Joseph A. Maciariello|Senior Fellow &<\/p>\n Marie Rankin Clarke Professor of Social Science and Management Emeritus,<\/p>\n Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management<\/p>\n Claremont Graduate University<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The topic of the Drucker Forum is relevant to ongoing efforts to advance Drucker\u2019s body of work. The body of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[99,126],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1003"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1006,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions\/1006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}