Tag: Post Conference Learning

Reflection on Global Drucker Forum 2015: Work, human potential and technology
by Khuyen Bui

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“Global Peter Drucker Forum is not so much about better answers as it is about better questions” — Richard Straub   Any discussion about technology invariably has some forms of “What is in the future?” question. What changes will technology have in our lives and professions, how should we be prepared, what will happen to us?   The attitude behind these questions must be a proactive one. There is a big difference between “concern” and “worry”; only the former allows for practical actions. As Peter Drucker said, “The only way to predict the future is to create it”. Technology co-evolves with humans. For anything humans do, we can imagine machines replacing us: the ability to judge and make decisions, […]

The Trains to Hope
by Henry Mintzberg and Wolfgang Müller

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HM:  I have been writing in these TWOGs about the role of the plural sector in rebalancing society: first to recognize that it must take its place alongside the sectors called public and private (hence calling it “plural”, rather than civil society), and second to realize that the restoration of such balance will depend especially on this sector. The private sector is too powerful these days and the public sector overwhelmed by that power.   Some people don’t get the idea of the plural sector, perhaps because it has been so marginalized by the great debates over left versus right—private sector markets versus public sector governments. Where to put the plural sector, comprising all these community-based and other […]

A Moment Of Truth
by Isabella Mader

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The On-Demand Economy provides a preview of where society is going: now and more so in the future typically employed work will be sourced from platforms: graphics design, secretarial services, programming … Logical consequence will be a strong increase of freelance work. In 2015, in the US more than 40 percent of the workforce were in insecure contingent jobs [1]. Employment is slowly going to erode and companies will shrink to a strategic core of managers who source most work from platforms.   In addition, such commoditized labour experiences a globalization of competition (unless it’s bound to a site like taxi driving). Crowdworkers (freelancers on platforms) will also not have a work contract, but sign […]

Claiming Our Humanity in a Digital Age: Big Questions in Vienna
by David Hurst

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The theme of the 2015 Drucker Forum that ended in Vienna two weeks ago was “Claiming Our Humanity: Managing in a Digital Age”. Nearly 500 management academics, business people and management consultants from all over the world attended the two-day conference in Vienna.   The preliminary events began with a CEO Roundtable on the afternoon of Wednesday November 6. The opening ‘provocation’ was supplied by Tom Davenport and Julia Kirby’s June 2015 Harvard Business Review article “Beyond Automation”. In it they address the threat that artificial intelligence in the form of smart machines is encroaching on knowledge work to such an extent that it will lead to widespread unemployment. In the past machines took over […]

Entrepreneurs are self-centred
by Nick Hixson

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A reflection on some aspects of the Global Drucker Forum 2015, with thoughts pertaining to the 2016 Forum theme: The Entrepreneurial Society   …by which I mean they have self-belief, self-control, and self-actualisation.   But they’re not the solution to rising unemployment caused by the rise of machines. We heard a lot at the recent Drucker Forum about the rise of machines, and how natural monopolies are being eliminated as competitive advantages erode quicker. Stability is not normal any more.   So we can plan our societies for reducing levels of employment, and find things for people to fill their time with, together with a socially inclusive way of allowing them to fulfil their needs […]

6th Global Drucker Forum 2014: A Call to Action — The Need to Lead Differently, Own and Drive Innovation, and Embrace & Leverage Digital Technology in a Globally-Connected Economy
by Mark W. Beliczky

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Executive Summary/Management Implications   The “Great Transformation” is the current and on-going global economic transition from the “Industrial Age” (premised on physical production) to a “Knowledge/Creative/Human Economy” driven principally by globalization and technology (information/automation and the Internet). This great change is stressing an old industrial era top down/command-control leadership model with a new and emerging approach that more effectively addresses a complex and dynamic economic environment (“complexity leadership theory”) with a focus on learning, innovation and adaptability.   Companies who have responded to this economic transformation have shifted their leadership style have also recognized that it is the people who bring to work the essential traits that cannot be programmed or delivered by technology: creativity, […]

Patterns of Disruption and the Great Transformation (part 2)
by Haydn Shaughnessy

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In innovation and transformation we have avoided looking at the structural transformation of industries. This is arguably due to the fact that so many industries are changing at the same time, making the analysis of structural change an overwhelming task. Other reasons include: the fact that the change driver is not technology and nor is it an exogenous shock such as a fast rising emerging economy. Instead we have moved into an era where a combination of factors can quickly fragment an industry from tight vertical integration to broad horizontal dispersion.   The diagram below summarizes disruption forces in the IT and telecoms space from the late 1990s onwards. Reading the diagram from the left, […]

Patterns of Disruption and the Great Transformation
by Haydn Shaughnessy

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The economy is experiencing successive waves of change in industry after industry.   It is important to understand the common themes behind these changes and have a model that helps executives anticipate and manage the impact of disruption or to devise disruptive strategies. Increasingly executives are talking about change as “disruption” and many smaller companies are positioning themselves as “disruptors” of a sector. Arguably “disruption strategy” is taking over from competitive strategy. If so then we need to clarify terms and grasp what this means.   As identified by Christensen, disruption typically creates new markets. If it doesn’t do this then strategy is typically competitive rather than disruptive. If we bear that distinction in mind […]