Year: 2015

Between a rock and a hard place
by Herminia Ibarra

Posted on guest1 CommentPosted in 7th Global Peter Drucker Forum

Few disagree that the time is ripe for reimagining complex organizations so that they are more human and more agile. But, existing models for how to make the shift seem to offer a choice between a “rock and a hard place.”   Take the thorny problem of developing people. Anachronistic annual performance appraisal systems, everyone agrees, must give way to more fluid and continuous feedback. Or, consider the issue of working flexibly while maintaining an esprit de corps. Standardized arrangements and face-time ism, we concur, must cede to more bespoke arrangements and an outcomes-orientation.   But, while the ideals are noble, the jury is still out on just how to re-invent the workplace. Managers today […]

MANAGING IN THE DIGITAL AGE
by Nick Hixson, Drucker blog moderator

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 7th Global Peter Drucker Forum

IN AN AGE OF INCREASING DIGITALISATION AND AUTOMATION WHERE DO MANAGERS FIT INTO THE WORKFORCE, AND HOW WILL MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUES HAVE TO ADAPT TO THE NEW WORKING LANDSCAPE?   So are we managing, or just coping, in the fast-emerging digital age?   Bloggers have brought visions of dystopic societies where we are ruled by machines; worries concerning the disenfranchisement of vast swathes of the workforce when machines take away jobs; and questions regarding how developing countries may suffer most from the loss of low skilled jobs to autonomous contraptions.   These are reasonable concerns, and mirror the worries that many had during the rise of the Industrial Age, with Victorian machines changing the face of the countryside; […]

The capitalist world. Inclusive for everyone or excluding most?
by Denis Jaquet

Posted on guest1 CommentPosted in 7th Global Peter Drucker Forum

The world starts to understand. It was almost too late and it’s not even yet enough, not big enough, not fast enough. We understand that the way capitalism works now is simply a route to failure and exclusion instead of cohesion and unity. This stupid idea that a company should be able to increase its profits day after day kills organizations, long term investment, and respect for people. The fact that consideration for profit became stronger over consideration for what profit brings to the world is not only stupid but criminal. Profit is not a goal. Profit is a way and a consequence. When profit becomes a goal, the world loses and a few people […]

Peter Drucker and the Two Faces of Technology
by Rick Wartzman

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 7th Global Peter Drucker Forum

In discussing his new book, Machines of Loving Grace: The Quest for Common Ground Between Humans and Robots, the journalist John Markoff pointed out how polarizing the subject of automation and its effect on employment tends to be.   “You can go from the International Federation of Robotics on one side, which argues that we are on the cusp of the biggest job renaissance in history, to Moshe Vardi, a Rice computer scientist, who argues that all human jobs will be obsolete by 2045,” Markoff observed. “Which group is right?”   If Peter Drucker were around, I don’t think he’d hesitate to serve up an answer: Neither.   Drucker, who had watched this struggle play […]

Developing Mastery in a Digital Age
by Kenneth Mikkelsen and Harold Jarche

Posted on guest5 CommentsPosted in 7th Global Peter Drucker Forum

As Juan Manuel Fangio exited the chicane before the blind Tabac corner in the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix, he stamped on the brake. It was a counterintuitive reaction for a racing driver exiting a corner. One that likely saved his life. By slowing down he avoided ploughing into a multi-car pile-up, which was out of sight. In racing folklore, Fangio’s evasive action is considered a miracle. But why did he slow down?   The day before the race, Fangio had seen a photograph of a similar accident in 1936. As he approached Tabac, he noticed something different about the crowd – an unusual color. Fangio realized that, instead of seeing their faces, he was seeing […]

THE CHANGING RULES OF TRUST IN THE DIGITAL AGE
by Rachel Botsman

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 7th Global Peter Drucker Forum

During a recent stay at the Disney Swan hotel in Florida, I confess I did something in the bathroom I have done many times before. I used one too many towels and carelessly left them on the floor. It’s not something I’ve thought much about before: I leave the hotel and who’s to know? But something struck me as I walked out the door. I would never do this as a guest staying in a place on Airbnb. I behave differently because of the reputation system in place that means not only do I rate hosts but they rate me. Trust lies intimately between the perceptions of the two users.   We can point to […]

Networks are not Communities
by Henry Mintzberg

Posted on guest2 CommentsPosted in 7th Global Peter Drucker Forum

If you want to understand the difference between a network and a community, ask your Facebook friends to help paint your house.   Social media certainly connects us to whoever is on the other end of the line, and so extends our social networks in amazing ways. But this can come at the expense of deeper personal relationships. When it feels like we’re up-to-date on our friends’ lives through Facebook or Instagram, we may become less likely to call them, much less meet up. Networks connect; communities care.   Marshall McLuhan wrote famously about the “global village,” created by new information technologies. But what kind of a village is this? In the traditional village, you chatted with your neighbor at […]

The End of Expertise
by Bill Fischer

Posted on guest3 CommentsPosted in 7th Global Peter Drucker Forum

What if what you know didn’t matter anymore? What if knowledge became a commodity? What if everyone could be an expert?   Far-fetched, you think? Well, in fact, the what if is no longer speculative; it is here already. Talk to people in such professional service industries as: private banking, auditing, consulting, even engineering, and you begin to hear concerns about the commoditization of professional knowledge. A consulting civil engineer [the field in which I was first educated, and still find so deliciously complex] admitted to me that much of what you need to know in that field is on line, and that their corporate clients were a new breed who didn’t so much want what […]