Tag: Joseph Pistrui

The Role of a Manager Has to Change in 5 Key Ways
by Joseph Pistrui & Dimo Dimov

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 10th Global Peter Drucker Forum

“First, let’s fire all the managers” said Gary Hamel almost seven years ago in Harvard Business Review. “Think of the countless hours that team leaders, department heads, and vice presidents devote to supervising the work of others.” Today, we believe that the problem in most organizations isn’t simply that management is inefficient, it’s that the role and purpose of a “manager” haven’t kept pace with what’s needed. For almost 100 years, management has been associated with the five basic functions outlined by management theorist Henri Fayol: planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. These have become the default dimensions of a manager. But they relate to pursuing a fixed target in a stable landscape. Take away […]

Include Me Out
by Joseph Pistrui

Posted on guest1 CommentPosted in 9th Global Peter Drucker Forum

In the 1930s, a group of Hollywood executives tried to entice Samuel Goldwyn to join them in a project. Upon reflection, Goldwyn declined, saying, “Include me out.” Today, too many people are saying the same thing when it comes to solving the world’s problems. While some level of progress around the world is undeniable, the challenges facing the world today are unparalleled. If you can, set aside momentarily the flagrant terrorism and threats of war. Focus for a second on the daily upheaval that is only sure to grow as today’s workplace (built on a 19th century manufacturing model) is supplanted by a workplace built on 21st century digital platforms, more automated and robotic than […]

Toward a society of entrepreneurs
by Joseph Pistrui

Posted on guestLeave a commentPosted in 8th Global Peter Drucker Forum

Quick. Name ten entrepreneurs. Those pulling from recent history might easily name Steve Jobs, Jack Ma, Robin Chase, Mark Zuckerberg. Those more historical might mention Henry Ford, Estee Lauder, Carlos Slim, or Coco Chanel. Top 10-50-100 entrepreneur lists abound with many overlapping names. Could it be that such lists are a huge disservice to entrepreneurialism? By tagging only a relative handful of elite “entrepreneurs”, have we demoted the endemic, innate — even genetic — trait shared by most, if not all, humans? Have we allowed the history of entrepreneurism to be defined solely by the few hundred people who practised it so well that profound commercial success became the capstone of their careers? What’s tricky […]

Time to Clean the Management Lens
by Joseph Pistrui

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

Management is a lens. It’s the best way yet invented to focus the organisation’s capital, human, and time resources toward the goals of the business. Many have observed that companies can have admirable goals; but, if poorly managed, success proves elusive.   Suppose the management lens was smeared, even opaque. In this case, management could easily misapply its resources. Or suppose the lens was a mirror looking only at the way resources had been deployed. In this case, management typically repeats decisions about how best to use its resources.   There are signs that this is very much the state of management today; and, with consumer and product cycles moving ever faster, the danger of […]