Peter Drucker used to say that the thing to look out for isn’t the trend, but a change in the trend. But he also emphasized that true innovation doesn’t aim to change the future, but to better address the present. Of course, he also argued that as soon as a product or service became profitable, it was time to develop a new one to keep the company viable in the future. Modern-day observers, on the other hand . . .
We noted yesterday that society has changed dramatically over the past few hundred years, but individual leadership continues to be conceived and cultivated virtually as it has for millennia. What, exactly, has changed, and why has the concept of leadership resisted changing with it? One major change, of course, has been . . .
Peter Drucker used to argue that the purpose of a business is to create a customer. He encouraged executives not to try to explain their businesses to their customers, but to let their customers – and potential customers – explain their businesses to them. The business should then organize itself around the results. Capitalism is the ideal vehicle for facilitating this process. . .
Most managers know who Peter Drucker is. He was particularly quotable, so many also can identify some of the pointers to his ideas: management by objectives, knowledge worker, and the like. Most people, though – including a good number who pretend to – really know little more than that. Jeffrey Krames’s new book, “Inside Drucker’s Brain,” is a good solution to this problem – perhaps the best.
Two weeks ago, we discussed the question of management fads, their causes and effects (academics, consultants, management). Author and consultant Ravi Tangri pointed out in a comment that some of the management ideas commonly viewed as fads are actually productive concepts that do much good when properly conceived and applied. That this is true only adds to the problem. . .
We’ve been looking, over the past few days, at some of Peter Drucker’s ideas about organizational design. The main lesson of his thinking is in his drive to first principles, and to his relentless effort to understand what we ought to be doing and why, and only then to turn to how we organize ourselves to do it. . .
When, in attempting to address a question or solve a problem, rather than solutions you find yourself surfacing additional questions and problems, you are probably on the right track. More than that, you are probably asking the right questions. After all, if the answers come too easily, you likely do not really have a problem at all – or you have the wrong one. Worse, as noted yesterday, we are often sorely tempted to brush aside what we see as distracting side issues and plunge on ahead to resolve the initially presenting problem. . .
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