A year with Peter Drucker : 52 weeks of coaching for leadership effectiveness : based on the work of Peter F. Drucker

416 Pages·2014·1.68 MB·English

by  Peter Ferdinand

Dedication
This book is dedicated to my sons, Pat and Joe, with love.
Acknowledgments
I first want to thank Bob Buford. Bob is the founder of Leadership Network and
the Halftime Institute, and an author of numerous books including the best-
selling book Halftime and the recently released book Drucker & Me.
Bob gave me access to recordings and transcripts of what is referred to in the
book as “The Drucker-Buford Dialogue Project.” The dialogue is a series of
mentoring consultations between Bob and Peter Drucker, and includes
consultations with a number of other leaders in private and social sector
organizations. These consultations took place from 1984 to September 2005, the
last one just two months before Drucker’s death on November 11, 2005. Bob
and his assistant Derek Bell provided me with available source materials, CDs,
and transcripts in 2008, and Bob encouraged me to engage in the research
necessary to write this book. Derek and I consulted with Bob and many other
leaders in the social sector between 2009 and 2013. Without Bob’s support and
encouragement, and Derek’s help, this book would not have been possible.
Bob’s personal assistant, BJ Engle, was a source of information and
encouragement to me. Thank you, BJ.
Steve Hanselman, my friend and agent, worked with me over a two-year
period to help design the structure of the book so that it would provide a
yearlong mentoring experience for executives and those aspiring to become
executives. Thank you, Steve.
I would like to thank Hollis Heimbouch, Vice President/Publisher of
HarperBusiness. Hollis helped to refine the structure of the book at a critical
point in the writing process. Eric Myers served as my editor throughout and
helped me immensely with the detailed editorial issues that we confronted in
creating a book that would mentor executives in both business and public
service. Thank you, Eric. The copyeditor, Ms. Susan Gamer, did the most
thorough job of copyediting I have ever experienced. I am grateful to Hollis,
Eric, Penny Makras, Joanna Pinsker, Anna Brower, Oliver Munday, and all
those involved at HarperBusiness.
Mr. Ming Lo Shao, founder and chairman of the Bright China Group, has
provided me with research support during this and several previous research and
publication projects. Thank you, Mr. Shao.
Kathy Holden, my assistant at the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito
Graduate School of Management of Claremont Graduate University, was
available to provide assistance I needed during the entire time I worked on this
book. Thanks, Kathy.
The Drucker Literary Trust cooperated with me in writing this book by
granting permission to use relevant passages from Peter Drucker’s books. In
addition, Doris Drucker has been a constant source of friendship and inspiration
to me as I have tried to advance the legacy of Peter Drucker. At 103 she was
looking forward to reading this book. But she died on October 1, 2014. I will
miss her warmth, her sense of humor, and her encouragement.
In addition to the transcripts, Derek and I interviewed Jim Mellado. Jim, now
president of Compassion International, Colorado Springs, Colorado, gave of his
time to discuss with Derek Bell and me the work of the Willow Creek
Association and its premier event, the Global Leadership Summit, whose
purpose is to diffuse innovations throughout society. Thank you, Jim.
I had numerous conversations with Dr. Chuck Fromm, president of
Maranatha Music for twenty-five years and founder and president of Worship
Leader magazine. Chuck participated in a number of Drucker-Buford meetings
and was very helpful to me in contextualizing issues of succession, especially
those issues involved in succeeding charismatic founders of large organizations.
Three friends, with expertise in the subject matter of this book, listened and
encouraged me throughout the entire research and writing process. Thanks to
Professors Steve Davis and Donald Griesinger, and to John Pusztai.
Finally and most important, my wife, Judy, listened and commented on the
numerous drafts this book went through. To say that she helped and encouraged
me is an understatement because no one knows what went into this book and no
one gave more support to me than Judy. Thank you once again, Judy.
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Introduction
EFFECTIVE LEADERS
Week 1: Developing Leaders, Not Functionaries: Effective Leaders Get the
Right Things Done and You Can Trust Them
Week 2: Questions to Ask Before Committing a Portion of Your Life to the
Service of an Organization
MANAGEMENT IS A HUMAN ACTIVITY
Week 3: Three Fundamental Questions for a Functioning Society of
Organizations
Week 4: Education and Management: Keys to Economic Development
Week 5: Management Rooted in the Nature of Reality
SETTING YOUR SIGHTS ON THE IMPORTANT, NOT THE URGENT
Week 6: Make the Important Rather Than the Urgent Your Priority in Life
Week 7: Manage in Two Time Dimensions
THE ROAD MAP TO PERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS
Week 8: Concentration
Week 9: Organize Work for Effectiveness
Week 10: Information Literacy for Executive Effectiveness
Week 11: Principles of Professional Leadership and Management
MANAGEMENT IN A PLURALISTIC SOCIETY OF
ORGANIZATIONS
Week 12: Management: “The Governing Organ of All Institutions of
Modern Society”
Week 13: The First Job in Any Organization Is to Make Top Management
Effective
Week 14: Control by Mission and Strategy, Not by Hierarchy
Week 15: Sustaining the Spirit of an Organization
NAVIGATING A SOCIETY IN TRANSITION
Week 16: Our Problems in the United States Are Social Problems
Week 17: Rough Period of Transition Ahead for America
Week 18: A Major Period of Transition for Society and Individuals
Week 19: Seeing the Future That Has Already Happened: Social and
Demographic Changes Emerging in the United States
Week 20: Seeing the Future That Has Already Happened: Turmoil in
Education
MAINTAINING YOUR ORGANIZATION THROUGH CHANGE
Week 21: Continuity and Change
Week 22: Systematic Abandonment and Innovation
Week 23: Using the Mission Statement to Create Unity in the Organization
Week 24: A Primer on Market Research of Noncustomers
Week 25: Phase Changes as Organizations Grow and Change
STRUCTURING YOUR ORGANIZATION
Week 26: Centralization, Confederation, and Decentralization
Week 27: The Networked Organization: A Model for the Twenty-First
Century
MANAGING YOUR MEMBERS
Week 28: Managing the Superstar
Week 29: A Second Chance for Failures
Week 30: What Kind of Organizations Does America Need to Strengthen
Society?
THE SUCCESSION DECISION
Week 31: The Succession Decision: Maintaining the Spirit of the
Organization
Week 32: Planning for Succession in Organizations
LESSONS FROM THE SOCIAL SECTOR ON THE POWER OF
PURPOSE
Week 33: Mission
Week 34: Accommodating Various Constituencies in a Mission
Week 35: The Salvation Army
Week 36: Diffusion of Innovation—Public Schools
Week 37: Application of Peter Drucker’s Methodology of Social Ecology
DEVELOPING ONESELF FROM SUCCESS TO SIGNIFICANCE
Week 38: Pursuing Significance After Success
Week 39: Work in an Area of Your Unique Contribution
Week 40: Individuals May Need a Process to Help Them Move from
Success to Significance
Week 41: Where Do I Really Belong?
Week 42: Halftime Is an Entrepreneurial Enterprise
Week 43: A Catalyst to Help People Manage Themselves and Move to the
Second Half of Their Lives
CHARACTER AND LEGACY
Week 44: Our Society in the United States Has Lost Its Sweetness
Week 45: The Power of Purpose: Rick Warren on Peter Drucker
Week 46: The Stewardship of Affluence and the Stewardship of Influence
Week 47: Making Ourselves Useful to Others and to Ourselves
Week 48: What Do Leaders Stand For?
Week 49: You Become a Person by Knowing Your Values
Week 50: What Do You Want to Be Remembered For?
Week 51: “We Mentor . . . Because We Can Envision What a Person Can
Become”
Week 52: Peter Drucker’s Ten Principles for Finding Meaning in the
Second Half of Life, As Reported by Bob Buford
Lessons Learned
Appendix
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Also by Joseph A. Maciariello
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Introduction
Peter Drucker mentored executives and other knowledge workers for over a half
century through his consulting, teaching, and publications. As a longtime student
and colleague of his, I have had the opportunity to observe his mentoring
directly and I have benefited from his counsel. It began in 1981, when I attended
a PhD seminar he taught in Claremont. I also had the opportunity to learn from
him during the twenty-six years I spent as his colleague at what is now the Peter
F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management of Claremont
Graduate University.
When Drucker reduced his teaching, I had the opportunity to teach the
course “Drucker on Management” to executives and MBA students in Claremont
and around the world for approximately ten years. I then coordinated a team-
taught course, “The Drucker Difference,” involving the entire Drucker faculty.
Finally, I had the extraordinary opportunity to work directly with him during the
last six years of his life. Then in 2008, Bob Buford asked me to assemble,
analyze, edit, and study the transcripts and listen to the recordings of Drucker’s
mentoring of him and a number of other leaders associated with his Leadership
Network and the Halftime Institute. In addition, I later conducted and transcribed
interviews related to what I have called the Drucker-Buford Dialogue Project,
which took place from 1984 to 2005. I have devoted much of my time during the
past six years to developing the ideas contained in this mentoring book, an
opportunity given to me by Bob Buford.
The purpose of this book is to share Drucker’s management techniques with
fans the world over. Through a year of readings, lessons, and questions, you will
get a chance to experience Drucker’s mentorship. The objective is to share
Drucker’s mentorship program with you just as he shared it with Buford and
with a number of others.
Drucker’s work has had a tremendous impact on the management of large-
scale organizations, a product of the twentieth century. Drucker codified the
practice of management in 1946 and 1954, largely on the basis of his consulting
experience and his knowledge of the social sciences and humanities, including