Peter F. DruckerBesprekingen

An excellent book by Peter Drucker. He gets here the essence of what management should be and the actual role of executives in organization. That is to orient the resources available toward their productive usage. Many parts of the book can be extended to a more general conception of productivity or effectiveness than simply the big corporation and interesting conclusions can be drawn to personal productivity or family management for example. From time management to the effective way of taking decisions, all the key concepts are here and illustrated by highlights of the first half of the twentieth century history, be it from business or military worlds.

Well, I don’t know the historical context of this classic book. If Peter were alive, he would have recommended Carol Dweck’s Mindset. But who am I to judge him. I didn’t really enjoy this short read. May be this work is a bit archaic now.

Drucker analizza l'attività che i manager svolgono all'interno delle organizzazioni. Ne deriva una concezione del management come "funzione" sociale, che l'autore approfondisce discutendo i problemi di fronte ai quali si trova la società attuale. Il libro esamina gli obiettivi dei manager, i loro compiti, le metodologie utilizzate nella loro attività. Esempi e casi di aziende o istituzioni americane arricchiscono l'opera.

A very practical read that remains relevant, despite being written in 1966. Drucker premises the book about maximizing the effectiveness (getting the right things done) of a new class of 'knowledge workers' -- what strikes me as particularly relevant is the these lessons can be applied beyond the stereotypical white collar office worker, particularly in service and light manufacturing.

Today, I don't think there is as clear of a dichotomy as Drucker proposes. All workers would benefit from:
-Reducing the non-value add work that wastes their time and energy (Know Thy Time)
-Focusing their efforts on high-contribution initiatives (What Can I Contribute?)
-Having jobs that are designed to be demanding and big, so as to be engaged to grow personally and professionally (Making Strength Productive)
-Communicate what parts of their role could be abandoned or de-prioritized (First Things First)

The book can lose your attention a bit in written form, so I particularly enjoyed the free audiobook version available as a podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8xMjI1ZDRkMC9wb2RjYXN...

Muito bom

Even though this book was published in 1967, it still has very good insights for executives because despite all the technological progress core tasks and values didn't change that much since then.

This quote from the book, in my opinion, is main [a:Peter F. Drucker|12008|Peter F. Drucker|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1318472244p2/12008.jpg]'s point:

Effectiveness, in other words, is a habit; that is, a complex of practices. And practices can always be learned.

To sum up, what good executives need:

They need to know where the time goes because time supply is not elastic.

Nothing else, perhaps, distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time.

Logging time is the solution in this case.

Make sure to focus on the results, not the efforts.
During meetings make sure to specify the purpose of the meeting and expected output.

Build on people strengths, not weaknesses (because everybody has some)
Do first things first and do it one at a time.
Always bring in new people because organisation always need fresh input and outsider's look.

Do not cure the symptoms of problem, instead cure the root of it and go for few important ones instead of many average issues.

Executive must ask himself: What will happen if we do nothing?
Good people emerge from good organisation and vice versa.

Do not make an important decision unless there is a disagreement:
- It helps from being shifted to one side for someone's favor
- It provides with alternatives for decision
- It stimulates the imagination

This is of course a classic of Management literature. Even though some ideas and concepts are becoming obsolete, I recommend reading this book, if you want to understand the purpose and principle of managing effectively as well as the difference to doing it efficiently.

Hesselbein, Frances( coord. ), Goldsmith, Marshall (coord.)

Summary: Describes the transformation of a society based on capital to one based on knowledge whose key structure is the responsibility-based organization.

Peter Drucker, who died in 2005 was the business guru I looked to as a young leader in a non-profit organization. He wrote Post-Capitalist Society in 1993. In many ways, it captures a number of his key ideas, and in many ways seems prophetic, twenty-eight years later.

His key idea here is that we have witnessed a transformation from a capitalist society to a knowledge society, based on the successive Industrial, Productivity, and Management Revolutions. Now we are not in a situation of knowledge but knowledges–specialized knowledge for work in more highly specialized organizations. Organizations make knowledge productive for a special purpose. In a knowledge society, the workers own the capital, which is their knowledge, but need the organization to make it productive.

He has a fascinating discussion on the source of capital in pension funds through institutional investors. Here as well, employees are the ultimate “owners” even while trustees manage these funds. He points to the critical role of corporate governance in creating organizations responsible to these employee-owners. As he looks at the question of productivity, he advocates for corporate restructuring and outsourcing so that organizations concentrate on what they are most effective at doing. Effective responsible organizations are ones where everyone takes responsibility for the organization.

He then turns from the knowledge society of organizations to the wider polity of which they are a part. He envisions the transitions from nations to megastates, as we see in the European Union, NAFTA, and other regional economic polities. Even in 1994, Drucker recognized the environment as one of the needs for transnational arrangements, as well as counter-terrorism efforts and arms control. Even while he recognizes this movement to regional entities and transnational agreements, he foresaw the rise of tribalism, and the stress on diversity rather than unity. For Drucker, tribal and transnational identities go together. And maybe this is so, but not in the ethnic ways he sees but in the radical political identities on the far right and left of the political spectrum that find iterations in many countries.

He is witheringly critical of “the nanny state” in which taxation and economic policy is designed not to make the “patient” healthy but rather to feel good. He points to the success of Germany (before 1989) and Japan and the “Asian tigers” that had high taxes but high investment in education, in facilities, and infrastructure. He argues that patriotism is not enough and that what is needed is the revitalization of community (even more true today) and citizenship expressed through voluntarism.

In the final section, he focuses even more on the cultivation of knowledge. He argues that we know more than we do and need to learn to “only connect,” to see how disparate pieces connect as a whole. He considers here the needs of education, and contends here, as well, for outsourcing and charter schools (an area that has a very mixed record of effectiveness). He advocates for the “accountable” school. While Drucker had a richer vision of the results he would seek from education, his was among the voices that sustained an accountability movement that has focused more on test-taking than learning, to the discouragement of many teachers. Ultimately Drucker believed people needed to be educated for work in two cultures simultaneously–“that of the ‘intellectual,’ who focuses on words and idea, and that of the ‘manager,’ who focuses on people and work.”

Where Drucker seems the most prescient is his understanding of the knowledge economy. What I don’t think he foresaw was the monetization of knowledge in the information economy. He recognized the growth of transnationalism, but didn’t fully reckon with the reactionary character of nationalism, often acting against its own interests. He had wisdom that both corporations and governments need about long-term planning and especially for governments, the follies of budget deficits in good times as well as bad. Perhaps most compelling to me was his call beyond patriotism to work for the common good and to citizenship expressed in voluntarism. He recognized that we need people educated both in humane ideals and technical skill, refusing to come down on one side or the other. None of us sees the future with complete clarity. Drucker saw it better than many, understanding the developments and trajectory of history and the challenges facing organizations and large polities of his time.

This is one of my favorite books. Drucker is as much philosopher as he is business man. He gives the illusion that there is humanity in corporations. He made me want to be a business woman & then corporate America splashed reality on me like ice water.

This one's sure dated. Drucker writes clean, assertive prose. The book is very quotable and also full of useful info, but so much of it references case studies from 50 - 100 years ago that it's hard today to feel like I'm able to extract as much meaning out of the case studies as somebody might have in 1966. I'm simultaneously reading The Daily Drucker and for the moment am inclined to think that reading a summary of the high points of The Effective Executive book and maybe thumbing through a copy of The Daily Drucker would be a useful exercise for most anybody in a lead or management role. I'm not sure I'd recommend a full read of The Effective Executive for most, though.

(Side note -- the more I read this book, the more, for some reason, I had trouble not hearing it in my head in the voice of Droop Dog.)

I've written a slightly more comprehensive review here.

Solid ideas and a few good insights, particularly Drucker's definition of what an executive even is (a person that must independently make decisions and take responsibility for those decisions), as well as the idea that with any good decision there will be disagreement. However, I found some anecdotes to be difficult to relate back to the point being made. Many of the topics also seem to be common sense, though perhaps this is a testament to the success of the book and the permeation of its ideas today.

Wasn’t the easiest bedside reading, but important read. Similar to The One Thing, 7 habits, how to win friends, in that it’s from a different era and some of the man focused language is outdated. Would be good to have a even more condensed version with contemporary examples but I appreciated learning about McNamara, Alfred Sloan and the like. Important decision making rubric and self management ideas.

Drucker's tome

His comments about Freud are enough to make me want to read this book.

'Freud was deeply hurt by any hint that his theory was poetry and not science ... [yet] Freud was a very great artist, probably the greatest writer of German prose in this century.' Drucker also quotes novelist Thomas Mann, who on Freud's 80th birthday called psychoanalysis 'the greatest contribution to the art of the novel.' (all on Page 91)

The chapters in this book come from books and essays that were previously published. The preface identifies where the chapters came from.

I finished reading "The Essential Drucker" today. I started reading it over a year ago and my reading in it languished. During that period of not reading it, I managed to pick up a second copy at a used book store. Even though I wasn't currently reading it, I have found his writings to be solid. Then, a few weeks ago I picked it up and began reading in earnest. Since it had been so long since I read the first few chapters, I started from page 1.

It has been a fascinating adventure to read it. I have been continually amazed that articles he wrote roughly 25 years ago stated the very problems that are vexing us today, and as a "Management Consultant" he gives his recommendations on which direction to go.

In many places it caused me to think about things in new ways, in other places I was caused to think about issues more deeply than before. In all of the chapters I held a red pen in my hand to mark paragraphs that were interesting. Reasons for marking them varied - sometimes I wanted to share what I had read. Other times I felt he expressed something particularly well, in other places there were snippets of information that I hadn't known and wanted to remember.

Just about every chapter now has it's share of red pen marks delineating what I found to be the more notable passages.

Management, Drucker P F

Management, Drucker P F

Management, Drucker P F

Management, Drucker P F

A good book with lots of important points. I'll have to read it again in future because the writing style is a tiny bit on the acedemic side.

This is a great introduction to Drucker. Time management, decision making and focus on results are covered in depth and are very accessible. On to "Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices

Pour toutes les organisations à but lucrtif ou non, quel que soit leur secteur d'activité, public privé ou social.

4.5 stars. Short little thing but is full of practical advice. It's useful and not just fluff.

I'm pretty sure that if we'd ever met in real life I'd have punched Peter Drucker in the face.