{"id":1642,"date":"2017-11-01T00:01:03","date_gmt":"2017-10-31T23:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/?p=1642"},"modified":"2017-10-17T10:45:59","modified_gmt":"2017-10-17T08:45:59","slug":"a-radical-suggestion-for-the-drucker-forum-2017-implement-peter-drucker-part-2-by-steve-denning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.druckerforum.org\/blog\/a-radical-suggestion-for-the-drucker-forum-2017-implement-peter-drucker-part-2-by-steve-denning\/","title":{"rendered":"A Radical Suggestion For The Drucker Forum 2017: Implement Peter Drucker! (Part 2)
by Steve Denning"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world\u2019s leading management conference\u2014the Global Peter Drucker Forum<\/a>\u2014will gather in Vienna next month (November 16-17, 2017) for its annual get-together. Once again, a star-studded cast of eminent speakers<\/a> will discuss a set of big issues, including: what will it take to achieve global broad-based prosperity in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world? Although an array of bold new ideas will, as in previous years, be canvassed, perhaps the most important suggestion for the Forum to consider is something simpler: why not get on with the implementation<\/em> of the ideas already laid out by Peter Drucker many years ago?<\/p>\n

Unleashing Innovation-Driven Growth Globally<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Part 1 of this article, I looked at the issue of short-termism. The Drucker Forum 2017 will also be considering what it would take to \u201cunleash innovation-driven growth globally.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here again, the Forum will obviously draw on Peter Drucker\u2019s brilliant 1985 book, Innovation and Entrepreneurship<\/em><\/a>. Drucker foresaw that in future work would transition from bureaucratic practices; management would focus on innovation and new opportunities, generating an entrepreneurial spirit throughout entire organizations; the whole of society itself would become entrepreneurial. It was a brilliant vision, and yet, some 32 years later, it hasn\u2019t generally happened. Bureaucracy is still alive and well and thriving in big organizations everywhere. Why?<\/p>\n

No doubt as in last year\u2019s Drucker Forum<\/a>, speakers will lament the fact that many, if not most, workers continue to plod on as wage slaves, their talents locked in bureaucratic silos or eking out a precarious existence in the emerging gig economy, while big organizations downplay innovation and increasingly focus on exploiting existing business models, often enhanced through financial engineering, rather than exploring new opportunities through innovation.<\/p>\n

Yet it is to be hoped that speakers at the Drucker Forum 2017 will also recognize that this is not the full picture. If, like Peter Drucker, we \u201clook out the window, and see what\u2019s visible\u2014but not yet seen,\u201d we should be able to recognize that some large organizations are already<\/em> operating in a way that is close to what Drucker foresaw.<\/p>\n

My own perspective is influenced by a continuous interaction with firms that have over the past several years joined the SD Learning Consortium (SDLC)<\/a>\u2014a non-profit corporation registered in the state of Virginia, USA and with members dedicated to learning from each other about better ways to manage. The firms now represent a cross-section of organizations in different sectors and countries. The current members are Barclays, Cerner, CHRobinson, Ericsson, Fidelity Investments, Microsoft, Riot Games, and Vistaprint. With the potential incoming members in 2018, the publicly-owned SDLC members will have combined market capitalization that exceeds $1 trillion and will employ more than half a million people. So they represent a significant slice of the corporate world. All of them are on a journey to implement management focused on delivering continuous innovation for customers and sharing their findings with each other and the world.<\/p>\n

How are these firms are being run? The firms are on record in their annual report for 2016<\/a> as affirming that their espoused way of managing is closely akin to themes that Peter Drucker enunciated long ago and includes principally:<\/p>\n