The Essential Drucker By Peter F. Drucker
I know that Drucker is one of the foremost authorities on 20th century Management.
I know that his contemporaries consider Drucker a genius.
I personally simply have a hard time following his writings, and this book was no exception.
The Essential Drucker compiles a Reader's Digest Version from his top works on management and leadership. Covering topics such as his famous predictions on knowledge work economy to the entrepreneurial spirit of the future employee. Drucker dives into managing and leading these people. A good portion of the book is dedicated to how in the knowledge worker economy volunteerism will continue to rise pioneering new methods of management and leadership.
It does amaze me how accurate many of Drucker's observations were. The Essential Drucker is a good opportunity to dip your toes into many of the key areas that are still relevant in today's economy.
368 overall, I liked the book. However, as someone in the entrepreneurial field, I was learning many of the concepts in the field and that makes you a bit resistant to some points. However, as a general rule book, I would say it's great for everyone who is dreaming to start a company or manage a group of people. 368 “Not to innovate is the single largest reason for the decline of existing organizations. Not to know how to manage is the single largest reason for the failure of new ventures.”
Highlights of Drucker's management body of knowledge created during 60 years, published almost 20 years ago... means the contents have to be taken with certain reservations (i.e. introducing the knowledge worker as a new phenomena). There are many ageless principles in this book as it's still very often cited by management books published in present day, yet I would say that the principles covered in Effective Executive have aged the best (so definitely recommending to read that book out of Drucker's many books).
“Every enterprise requires commitment to common goals and shared values. Without such commitment there is no enterprise; there is only a mob. The enterprise must have simple, clear, and unifying objectives. The mission of the organization has to be clear enough and big enough to provide common vision. The goals that embody it have to be clear, public, and constantly reaffirmed. Management’s first job is to think through, set, and exemplify those objectives, values, and goals. Management”
“To be sure, the fundamental task of management remains the same: to make people capable of joint performance through common goals, common values, the right structure, and the training and development they need to perform and to respond to change.”
“Success always makes obsolete the very behavior that achieved it. It always creates new realities. It always creates, above all, its own and different problems. Only the fairy tale ends, “They lived happily ever after.”
368 'كتاب لكل من يريد البدء في فهم مفهوم وفلسفة الإدارة الحديثة' هذا ما يمكنك أن تختصر به هذا الكتاب
فعند قراءتي له استطعت الحصول على خلاصة أعمال دراكر خلال مايزيد عن ستين عاماً من الجهد حول علم الإدارة الواسع بطريقة سهلة قريبة وواضحة ومختصرة للمبتدئين في هذا العلم في مايقارب ال 400 صفحة فقط
حيث تدرج دراكر بإيصال أهم أساسياته وأفكاره في ثلاثة أجزاء ابتدأ الجزء الأول بحديثه عن الإدارة كمفهوم عام وأحدث أساليبها واستكمل الجزء الثاني بحديثة عن المدراء الأفراد وأهم ما يجب أن يتمتع ويقوم به المدير وأنهى الكتاب بالجزء الثالث والأخير بحديثه عن المجتمع وإدارته وتأثير الإدارة فيه
وجدت نفسي في هذا الكتاب أمام كم هائل من المعلومات المتلاحقة وهذا ما جعلني أقوم بقراءته على فترة زمنية طويلة نسيباً ولكن ما ازعجني فعلاً فيه كثرة الأمثلة التي ذكرت بالاسم فقط (ولكنك ستتغاضى عن هذا الأمر بسبب أن الكتاب هو اختصار من باقي مؤلفات دراكر) فكنت أتمنى لو تم إيضاحها في الهوامش .. بالإضافة أنني لاحظت تأثر واهتمام دراكر الكبير بدراسة شركة General Motors والذي يبدو واضحاً جداً في الكتاب
ببساطة كتاب مفيد وقيّم :) واستمتعت بقراءته جداً 368 The Essential Drucker is one of those books that is tough to review because it covers so much great content with such a deep level of insight. What's most remarkable is that he covers the huge subject of management in a 350 page book but it's so packed full of information that it seems like the book should have been more like 1,000 pages. He covers subjects such as Dimensions of Management (Mission, Worker Achievement, and Social Responsibilities), transparency and responsibility in organizations, how to set and review standards for performance and promotion, how to manage through objectives and structured feedback, communications with subordinates and superiors, basic principles of hiring decision making (if you put a person in a position and they don't perform - that's your mistake, the soldier has a right to competent command, people decisions are the most important because they determine the capacity of the organization, and don't give new people major assignments because it compounds risk), entrepreneurial strategies (fast and hard, going where they're not, finding and occupying a niche, and changing the economic characteristics of a product, market, or an industry), design of experiments to assess management effectiveness, and even time management and personal development. Drucker spends the last bit of the book discussing the rise of the knowledge economy and the changes that it is going to bring. Although this was written a while ago, Drucker is mostly right on and has insights on the growing importance of personal development and the exponential growth in productivity of the knowledge worker. Interestingly, he also touches on the topic of what should intelligent people do with their free time? He suggests that more and more people are devoting significant amounts of times to non-profits, but aren't just ladling out soup at the soup kitchen, but instead are bringing their skills from work to the non-profit sector. He stresses that managers have a particularly important role to play in this sphere.
A great book. My only complaint is that because it's an amalgamation of Drucker's other works, there is sometimes slight overlap in his stories and by the end you'll be sick and tired of hearing about Alfred Sloan and General Motors (even though he was the man!). 368
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. 368 The plain-spoken stark insights in this book made me feel like I was reading philosophy although the subject matter is management. He really has pioneered a theoretical discipline of management and I found his thinking to be both pragmatically informative AND intellectually stimulating. Anyone interested in Organizational Behaviour or Management, or perhaps even economic organizational thought, should get a good dose of Peter Drucker--and I felt like I got that in this excellent compilation. He is an unquestionably brilliant thinker and even reading a few pages is worth the knowledge gained from doing so. I particularly liked his insights in the early chapters about profit incentives and how the microeconomic approach is both correct but flawed. Sometimes he doesn't offer an alternate explanation to problems--he just thoroughly outlines why the present ones are becoming obsolete. I loved this book! 368 Reading The Essential Drucker is like listening to a boxed set from your favorite recording artist in vinyl format. The music is timeless and so is the business advice of Peter Drucker.
Here are a hand-selected dozen of The Greatest Hits you will experience during this journey through six decades of mastering the art and science of management:
There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer.
Because its purpose it to create a customer, the business enterprise has two -- and only these two -- basic functions: marketing and innovation.
Results exist only on the outside. The result of a business is a satisfied customer.
Customers pay only for what is of use to them and gives them value. Nothing else constitutes quality.
The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well that the product or service fits him and sells itself.
Being at least as good as the [industry] leader is a prerequisite for being competitive.
The [business] leader's first task is to be the trumpet that sounds a clear sound.
There is no correlation (unless it be a negative one) between performance as a bench engineer and performance as a manager.
Not to innovate is the single largest reason for the decline of existing organizations. Not to know how to manage is the single largest reason for the failure of new ventures.
An innovation, to be effective, has to be simple and it has to be focused. It should do only one thing; otherwise, it confuses. If it is not simple, it will not work.
Not enough people have at least one first-rate skill or knowledge area.
Waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence.Ask your leadership team how familiar they are with the business teachings of Peter Drucker. Receiving a response like Who is Peter Drucker? is like hearing Who were The Beatles?
Access Gene Babon's reviews of books on Business Leadership and Business Strategy at Pinterest. 368 I'm a total business book nerd- but I really enjoyed this one. Some of my favorite quotes:
If communication fits in with the aspirations, the values, the purposes of the recipient, it is powerful. If it goes against his aspirations, his values, his motivations, it is likely to be received at all or at best to be resisted.
Waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence
commitment to contribution is commitment to responsible effectiveness
Most suppliers don't think of pricing as a strategy. Yet pricing enables the customer to pay for what he buys rather than for w ...
for reports and procedures, when misused, cease to be tools and become malignant masters.
It should have been obvious from the beginning that management and entrepreneurship are only 2 different dimensions of the same task
It is clear that organization is not an absolute. It is a tool for making people productive in working together.
There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer
An organization is an organ of society and fulfills itself by the contribution it makes to the outside environment.
The great majority of people tend to focus downward. They are occupied with efforts rather than with results. They worry over what the organization and their superiors owe them and should do for them.And they are conscious above all of the authority they should have. As a result, they render themselves ineffectual.
To ask, What can I contribute? is to look for the unused potential in the job. And what is considered excellent performance in a good many positions is often but a pale shadow of the job's full potential of contribution.
Commitment to contribution is commitment to responsible effectiveness.
The understanding that underlies the right decisions grows out of the clash and conflict of divergent opinions and out of the serious consideration of competing alternatives.
Indeed, charisma does not by itself guarantee effectiveness as a leader. John F. Kennedy may have been the most charismatic person ever to occupy the White House. Yet few presidents got as little done.
But precisely because an effective leader knows that he, and no one else, is ultimately responsible, he is not afraid of the strength in associates and subordinates.
An effective leader knows that the ultimate task of leadership is to create human energies and human vision.
Effective leadership is not based on being clever,; it is based primarily on being consistent.
There is no known way to teach someone how to be a genius.
Incompetence, after all, is the only thing in abundant and never-failing supply.
The essence of management is to make knowledge productive.
Innovation and entrepreneurship are thus needed in society as much as in the economy, in public-service institutions as much as in business.
What we need is an entrepreneurial society in which innovation and entrepreneurship are normal, steady, and continual.
The correct assumption in an entrepreneurial society is that individuals will have to learn new things well after they have become adults - and maybe more than once.
The community that is needed in post-capitalist society- and needed especially by the knowledge worker- has to be based on commitment and compassion rather than being imposed by proximity and isolation.
Free market tomorrow means flow of information rather than trade. It also means that the center of gravity, and the center of power, will be the customer. 368 Никогда ни перестану удивляться, как можно столь сложную дисциплину, такую как менеджмент, сделать одновременно столь понятной и доступной и при этом углубиться до его основания, к самому его фундаменту. Питер Друкер на всю жизнь мне будет лучшим примером того как представить сложнейшие темы простыми и понятными словами.
Что касается глубины и качества самой книги, то это вообще отдельная тема. Такое впечатление что Друкер как рентген мог сканировать и видеть то, что другим не подвластно и делал это легко и непринужденно. Но при этом, я уверен, что Друкер пришел к такому мастерству не сразу. Это результат того, что он посвятил свою жизнь любимому делу и полностью отдался ему. С 1939 и до самой смерти (2005 г.) профессор Друкер написал, вдумайтесь, 39 книг и сотни статей в Harvard Business Review и The Wall Street Journal. Он как никто заслуженно признан одним из самых влиятельных теоретиков менеджмента XX века.
О самой книге очень сложно говорить, потому что боюсь, что не смогу передать насколько она совершенна и в результате кто то решит что книга не столь важна, что её стоит прочесть. Поверьте, стоит!
Единственное что скажу о ней, что она представляет собой сборник материалов из 10 книг Друкера. Сам он говорит о ней так: ... не только лучшее, на мой взгляд, введение в дело, которому я посвятил всю свою жизнь. Это не просто антология, о которой любой автор может только мечтать. Я уверен, что это действительно уникальное, логически последовательное введение в теорию управления, охватывающее базовые принципы, проблемы, задачи и возможности менеджмента.
Обязательно прочитайте эту книгу Питера Друкера и влюбитесь в работы автора так как это и сделал и я! Оно этого стоит! 368
Father of modern management, social commentator, and preeminent business philosopher, Peter F. Drucker analyzed economics and society for more than sixty years. Now for readers everywhere who are concerned with the ways that management practices and principles affect the performance of organizations, individuals, and society, there is The Essential Drucker—an invaluable compilation of essential materials from the works of a management legend.
Containing twenty-six core selections, The Essential Drucker covers the basic principles and concerns of management and its problems, challenges, and opportunities, giving managers, executives, and professionals the tools to perform the tasks that the economy and society of tomorrow will demand of them.
The Essential Drucker