This book gathers together Peter Drucker's articles from "Harvard Business Review" and frames them with a thoughtful introduction from the Review's Editor Tom Stewart. One of this century's most highly regarded students of management, Drucker has sought out, identified, and examined the most important issues confronting managers, from corporate strategy to management style to social change. Through his unique lens, this volume gives us the rare opportunity to trace the evolution of the great shifts in our workplaces, and to understand more clearly the role of managers.
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"You will not get a better chance to read the musings of Peter Drucker." - Jack Covert -- USA Today
About the Author
Peter F. Drucker was a writer, teacher, and consultant whose twenty-nine previous books have been published in more than twenty languages. He was the founder of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Simplicity on the other side of complexity,
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This review is from: Classic Drucker: Wisdom from Peter Drucker from the Pages of Harvard Business Review (Hardcover)
To me, one of Peter Drucker's greatest strengths as a business thinker is his ability to cut to the proverbial "bone" when sharing an insight about an especially complicated subject. This unique talent illustrates what Oliver Wendell Holmes meant when observing that he didn't "care a fig about simplicity on this side of complexity" but greatly admired simplicity "on the other side of complexity." Given Holmes' observation, consider these three prime examples of "classic Drucker": In 1963: "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all." (Managing for Business Effectiveness, page 83) In 1995: "EVA [economic value added] is based on something we have known for a long time: what we generally call profits, the money left to service equity, is usually not profit at all. Until a business returns a profit that is greater than its cost of capital, it operates at a loss...By measuring the value added among all costs, including the cost of capital, EVA measures, in effect, the productivity of all factors of production." (The Information Executives Truly Need, page 107) In 1988: "Information-based organizations, in other words, require clear, simple, common objectives that translate into particular actions. At the same time, however, as these examples dicate, information-based organizations also need concentration on one objective or, at most, on a few. Because the `players' in an information-based organization are specialists, they cannot be told how to do their work...So [such an organization] must be structured around goals that clearly state management's performance expectations for the enterprise and for each part and specialist and around organized feedback that compares [and contrasts] results with these performance expectations so that every member can exercise self-control. The other requirement of an information-based organization is that everyone takes information responsibility...The key to such a system is that everyone asks: Who in this organization depends on me for what organization? And on whom, in turn, do I depend?" (The Coming of the New Organization, page 133) There several other excellent sources of Drucker quotations (e.g. The Daily Drucker) which I frequently consult. However, in the 15 Harvard Business Review articles which are assembled in Classic Drucker, there is a context within which the value of each insight is more clearly indicated. In the Introduction, Thomas A. Stewart (editor of the Harvard Business Review) cites three of Drucker's great gifts to his life work: "First was the talent for asking the right questions...His second gift was to see organizations whole...[Drucker's] third gift was the ability to reason equally well both inductively and deductively." All three gifts are clearly evident in each of the 15 articles. Near the conclusion of an interview by T. George Harris in 1993, Drucker makes several points which seem even more relevant now: "'Democratic' bespeaks a narrow and legal organization. Nor do I use the buzzword `participative.' Worse yet is the `empowerment' concept. It is not a great step forward to take power out at the top and put it in at the bottom. It's still power. To build achieving organizations, you must replace power with responsibility." During the months and years to come, decision-makers in all organizations (regardless of nature or size) would be well-advised to keep such basic business precepts in mind, not as simplistic solutions to immensely complicated problems but, rather, as fundamentally sound principles to keep in mind when attempting to solve such problems.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A compendium of business wisdom which should be in every business library collection,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Classic Drucker: Wisdom from Peter Drucker from the Pages of Harvard Business Review (Hardcover)
If the name of Peter Drucker sounds familiar, it should: he's inspired managers with his works for nearly half a century, with his articles in Harvard Business Review - gathered here for the first time under one cover and offering his best works to audiences of business learners. From how to remain productive throughout your work life and choose careers which are lasting to learning how and when to make changes, Classic Drucker is a compendium of business wisdom which should be in every business library collection.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wisdom for the ages,
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This review is from: Classic Drucker: Wisdom from Peter Drucker from the Pages of Harvard Business Review (Hardcover)
I found the chapter on self-management alone to be worth the price of the book.
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