“Warm hearts allied with cool heads seek a middle way between the extremes of abstract theory and personal impulse” Stephen Toulmin, Return to Reason In Masters of Management (2011) Adrian Wooldridge (Bagehot columnist for The Economist and frequent Drucker Forum participant) identified four defects in management theory: That it was constitutionally incapable of self-criticism Its terminology confuses rather than educates It rarely rises above common sense It is faddish and bedeviled by contradictions After declaring management theory “guilty” on all charges in various degrees, he identified the root problem as an “intellectual confusion at the heart of management theory; it has become… a battleground between two radically opposed philosophies. Management theorists usually belong to one […]

‘The arts of life…turn out to possess their own special methods and techniques…Bad judgement here consists not in failing to apply the methods of natural science, but, on the contrary, in over-applying them’. Isaiah Berlin, Political Judgement Ever since the European Enlightenment reason has been regarded as the hallmark of our humanity. The French philosophes argued that it was the power of abstract thought that separated us from animals. Only reason promised a certainty that could free us from the tyranny of tradition, dogmatic faith and arbitrary rule. Reason and rationality There was, however, not a single Enlightenment. While the French took Descartes as their model and focused on the supremacy of his rational method, […]

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 […]

Multilayered complex systems are stable when the large and/or slow processes govern through constraint the smaller, faster ones. Sudden change can take place when agents at a lower level escape the restrictions of agents higher in the system, disrupting the whole. This principle applies to all complex systems from golf swings to management organizations and political structures.   The Founding Fathers ensured that this was the case in the structure of the American government when they wisely arranged the different branches of government in a systems hierarchy of constraint. The House of Representatives is elected every two years, Presidents every four years, the Senate every six years (on staggered terms) and the Supreme Court is […]

In The Witch Doctors: Making Sense of the Management Gurus (1996, revised 2011) John Micklethwait (former editor-in-chief of The Economist, now of Bloomberg News) and Adrian Wooldridge (Schumpeter columnist for The Economist) identified four defects in management theory: That it was constitutionally incapable of self-criticism Its terminology confuses rather than educates It rarely rises above common sense It is faddish and bedeviled by contradictions They declared management theory “guilty” on all charges in various degrees, and went on to identify the root cause of the problem as an “…intellectual confusion at the heart of management theory; it has become not so much a coherent discipline as a battleground between two radically opposed philosophies. Management theorists […]

What is an entrepreneurial society? I think of it as a socio-economic system that is capable of constantly renewing itself. It retains its identity by constantly recycling and restructuring its elements. It achieves that elusive quality that Peter Drucker looked for in organizations throughout his career – a “balance” between continuity and change, order and movement.   For basic illustrations one can turn to nature. Ecosystems like temperate forests offer an example that may be paradigmatic; the innovative process begins in an open patch, where there is equal access to sun and rain and space for small-scale experimentation. We call the pioneers that come into this patch “weeds” – fast-moving organisms with simple structures, suited […]

Claiming Our Humanity: What the Pope Francis’ Encyclical on the Environment Brings To The 7th Global Drucker Forum   To students of management Pope Francis is a fascinating study in leadership and organizational change. From his surprise election as an outsider, the first Jesuit and non-European Pope in history, to his well-publicized efforts to shake up an aging institution by revisiting its mission and purpose, he exemplifies the behavior of a charismatic, transformational leader. His many actions to distance himself from the trappings of power that he believes separate him from the reality of the situation on the ground have been well documented. Now he has written a powerful, brilliantly-crafted papal letter (encyclical) on the […]