Book Review: The Essential Drucker

The Essential Drucker by Peter Drucker is a quintessential book dealing with management. It is composed of a selection of pieces from Drucker's many books over a period of sixty years. His uncanny insight in business has made him one of the world's preeminent philosopher of business. The Essential Drucker highlights important topics covered over three major elements of management: the Management, the Individual, and the Society. Drucker brings these three elements together in order to bring about a managerial environment. In particular, the section on the Individual is poignant and Drucker's theories appears to be rather common sense until one realizes that they are actually uncommon. This essay will attempt to connect Drucker's principles with everyday instances of management.

The first section in the Individual, Effectiveness must be Learned, discusses what it means to be effective in the workforce. To begin with Drucker separates the workforce into two fields by job type. The first is the manual worker. In the past they were the predominant workforce and their effectiveness was measured by the quantity and quality of their output. In the modern society, the knowledge workers is the primary workforce. They are expected to think, analyze, and apply their knowledge in their jobs. Their effectiveness cannot easily be measured since they deal with ideas or concepts rather than a concrete physical output. However, their ideas are essential to the world of business and must be effective in order to progress. Drucker identifies these knowledge workers as “executives” due to their responsibilities and importance to the organization. Going along with this flow, it may be appropriate to consider everyone in this world as an executive. Everyone has responsibilities, everyone creates a daily plan (mental or otherwise), and everyone has daily needs that require management. From this perspective, we can apply all of Drucker's principles to our daily lives for the sake of self improvement.

The next section, Focus on Contribution, focuses on the responsibilities of an effective person. As mentioned previously, the “executives” have a responsibility to perform and be productive. The ultimate aim of these workers should be the results rather than the effort in order to be effective. This is acutely exemplified during the polio eradication chapter Better by Atul Gawande. Pankaj was the executive in charge with the responsibility to ensure that the operation was properly executed. When he interviewed a local medical officer regarding the microplan, Pankaj simply focused on the job. He did not attempt to alleviate the officer's stress when the mistakes were uncovered. The objective was to vaccinate as many people as possible, not to dwell on mistakes and become less effective. That's not to say that one should ignore mistakes. It's best to focus on the goal and correct mistakes instead of placing blame when they occur. Pankaj's commitment to the job also makes him effective. His strong internal motivation enables him to focus solely on his contribution.

Know Your Strength and Values. Drucker mentions that increasingly, the people in the workforce will have to “manage themselves”. They will have to position themselves accordingly to make a contribution. This relates to the idea of motivation that was discussed in class. In order to manage yourself, there must be a motivation to learn and improve. Regardless of the type of motivation (internal or external), one must be aware of their strengths and weaknesses and concentrate on the strengths and remedy bad habits. Drucker mentions that rather than trying to change yourself, it is better to train to improve the way you perform. That is, once you know yourself focus on a duty that fits your strong attributes and do not choose one that does not compliment you. This is an extremely important principle. For example, even the decision to choose a major in college could go wrong if you position yourself outside of your strengths. As we've discussed in class, motivation is often the factor which drives one to succeed. For example, we study hard to get good grades. We understand ourselves such that when we notice a weakness (maybe a class is hard) and realize that in order to succeed (get an A) we must work (study) hard.

Next, Drucker focuses on time management: Know your Time. Effective knowledge workers begin by charting the flow of time and minimize waste. Time is a rare resource therefore it is very valuable and it must be well managed. The best way to manage time is to record and be aware of the demands on your time. Then after disposing of the waste, we can become more productive. I am personally well aware of my time demands. However, it is still difficult to manage it well. There are days where I've felt as though I have done a lot, but after a few moments of introspection, I realize that nothing was productive. This is probably quite normal for many people, and it easily be corrected by recording and analyzing one's time.

Effective people do not make many decisions; they make Effective Decisions. Effective decisions are decisions on a higher, conceptual or abstract level of thinking. Rather than wasting time on many generic problems, solving a few problems on a higher level may yield more outcomes. For example, President Obama follows uses effective decisions when dealing with the current health care issue. By proposing a possible solution or idea at the governmental level, he can attempt to help more people at one go. The first step in the decision process is the realization that the problem can only be solved by a decision that established a rule. Then, after meeting the specifications of the problem, we can work upon compromises, adaptation and solutions, The government is an organization that typically follows these principles.

Since the improvement of media and the introduction to the “flat” world, communication has become more important than ever. It is integral to success of an organization. Yet too much chatter makes us numb and lowers productivity. Drucker believes in Functioning Communications which is based off four fundamentals of communication. Communication is perception, meaning it is a two way street. A single person talking is not communication until there is someone to listen to it. This ties in to the fact that communication is expectation. People perceive what they expect to perceive. We can communicate effectively if we can cater to the recipients expectations. Next, communication is demand. There is a demand for recipients of information. Lastly, communication is different from information. Information yields logic and facts, it is also impersonal. The CIO interview helped the class understand the importance of communication. The CIOs are well aware of Drucker's ideas since they have learned it through experience. Frequent communication can help prevent problems from arising. In addition, it serves to inform everyone involved of progress. Drucker focuses on communication that deals with marketing. However, that can also overlap with other purposes. If the university wishes to start a new program, for example our class project, they would need to apply Drucker's principles before implementing anything.

One of the most important things to an organization is excellent leadership. As a member of a board in a RSO on campus, I understand this very well. A good leader can take an organization to new heights, resurrect a failing one, or destroy it. Drucker discusses Leadership as Work. Rather than “leadership qualities” or charisma, Drucker places performance as the essence of leadership. It is a very boring perspective, however, it explains it well. From a personal point of view, I look forward to an effective leader who can “get the job done”. Although many leaders have had charisma, their effective side has gone by unnoticed. Drucker present President Eisenhower as a prime example. As the president during the Korean War, he was very influential and dealt with many issues effectively. However, he did not possess the charisma or qualities that one idealizes a leader to posses. Choosing a president should be based around their effectiveness rather than their personality or so-called undefined “leadership qualities”. I can understand this perfectly from my position on the board. Everyone on our board is focused on our work and our responsibilities. The organization depends on our performance and we have a large impact on its future. We have to ensure that the organization can survive without us by leaving precedents and effective change.

Talking about the future of an organization, innovation is key to progress. However, innovation is not a result of spontaneity, or flashes of brilliance; innovation is process. The Principles of Innovation involves analysis and systematic hard work in order to be effective. The process begins with an analysis of opportunities available. Next, we seek customers to serve and create a simple but effective innovation. It can be something very small or elementary but it serves a purpose so that it can be a stepping stone for the next innovation. Lastly, leadership must implement strategies to take advantage of the innovation. This process makes it easy to innovate. I had an interview the other day where I was asked to sell a product. However, the “product” was simply a toy with many parts. It was impossible to identify the purpose of the toy, perhaps it was even broken. So in selling the toy, you look at a possible market and then identify the opportunities present. Finally, you market the toy by stating the advantages that it introduces. Given that my “product” was virtually unknown, I ended up selling it as an invention which can improve a cat's diet. Even, I could see that it was perhaps very silly but, it's a better and more realistic idea than selling it as something that can revolutionize the toy industry. I picked a niche market, identified something small as an innovation.

When looking at the future, it is difficult to see where you could be in forty years from now. You may still be working, however it a different environment and maybe in a different company than now. In fact, your current company may not exist in the future. Therefore, Drucker poses the question what to do with The Second Half of Your Life. “Midlife Crisis” has become a popular phrase in the news lately. Baby boomers dramatically changing their lifestyle after becoming bored with their previous job. Many are retiring late and switching to new jobs. Tim Allen, in Home Improvement, even decided to buy a beach house on a whim. Managing oneself will require preparation for the future. There are three solutions as outline by Drucker to this midlife crisis. First, is to change your job, which often involves just transferring to a different type of organization. Second, is to develop a parallel career. This is typically done by engaging in either a part-time organization or non-profit. Lastly, they can start something on their own. However, one must begin to plan for these three options long before they enter this phase. Preparing for the future, not only gives you a sense of security but also a fulfilling experience.

The last of of discussion in the Individual section is The Educated Person. The long and the short of it is that the educated person now matters. Regardless of the classifications of what “education” is, the educated person is a representative of society. Our society is requires knowledge to run it. The educated person's role is to apply their knowledge to the betterment of society. In addition, knowledge spurs on the advance of new theories and ideas which leads to new knowledge. The educated person now becomes a necessity for the sake of the future.

Drucker has touched upon many ideas with this book. He outlines several simple principles which show amazing depth which has never been analyzed before. I can relate to his remarkable insight and my viewpoint has changed. When I see the world through Drucker's eyes, I see an unbiased, balanced and rational world. My daily interactions and behavior are Drucker's principles which I perceive as common sense. However, as I have mentioned before, his common sense tends to uncommon in our real world.

The average worker does not think of himself as an executive. He does not have a physical record of his time management. He may not position himself to his strengths and finally, he may tend to dwell on mistakes and not have a clear goal in mind. In the office, everyone typically has their own responsibilities and few may strive to the most effective. Why does the average man not follow his common sense? I can't really answer that. I myself am sometime included amongst those who aren't very efficient with their time. These simple principles can be followed by someone with a strong motivation and hard work. It is difficult to gather internal motivation as we discussed in class and lets face it, not many people like to work hard.

From the sense of the book and the style of the author, we can see that Drucker intends this book to be similar to a guide book to management. The topics that I have detailed before are bullet points that can followed one step at a time to become a more effective worker. This also ties in with our course objectives directly as a method of designing for effective change. Drucker is focused on the idea of efficiency, productivity and effectiveness. There is a lot to be learned from this book which can help us be successful in our venture.

My reason for focusing on the Individual section is that it is the most informative section which can be tied to anybody working in any field. The goal is self improvement rather than a method to success.