The Words of Peter Drucker

My nephew has been home from Vanderbilt for the summer and he has been working as my marketing intern.  I’ve had a lot of fun getting to know Matt better, but I also wanted to make sure he was learning some things that would last beyond the summer.

Recently after he had fixed a Twitter Feed problem that had been particularly frustrating, I thought he might like to take on something a little more thought-provoking.  So, I introduced him to Peter Drucker, the renowned and revered thought-leader about all things “management.”

I was already a fan when I met Peter Drucker in the 1990s at a conference my organization was hosting. Although stooped and having trouble with his hearing, Drucker remained a powerful life force.  It was clear to me as soon as I shook his hand and he began to speak why he is so often referred to as the “father of modern management.” I worked in a leadership organization for 20 years where we sometimes struggled with how to talk about management, especially in relationship to what we considered to be larger and more elusive concepts of leadership.  Peter Drucker had no such struggle.  I appreciated how much he valued simple, straightforward and effective management practices and how clearly he thought they served as a foundation for strong, effective leadership.

So, I handed Matt a copy of The Daily Drucker and pointed out a few words from Jim Collins in the Foreword that capture my appreciation of Peter Drucker’s work: “Drucker’s genius shines best in the short paragraph or single sentence that cuts through the clutter and messiness of a complex world and exposes a truth.  Like a Zen poet, Drucker packs universal truth into just a few words; we can return to his teachings repeatedly, each time with a deeper level of understanding.”

This morning I asked Matt to pick out a few of his favorites from the 366 readings in The Daily Drucker. I think he pulled a pretty nice list:

• The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.
• Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you’ve got.
• Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.
• Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.
• People who don’t take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year. People who do take risks generally make about two big mistakes a year.
• The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.
• Trying to predict the future is like trying to drive down a country road at night with no lights while looking out the back window.
• Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.

So here’s to Peter Drucker, gone, but not forgotten and still teaching us all.  In the words he is said to have offered frequently, “Go out and make yourself useful.”