I got more out of this video than I have out of many expensive seminars and conferences I have attended. It's a terrific guide to dealing with change and turning it into opportunity. Drucker and Senge offer insightful observations about the how to prepare for the future. I showed it to a group of colleagues at a company off-site and it helped generate a great discussion. There's a workbook that I used to guide the discussion, and a lot of really good insights throughout the video.

Peter Drucker and Peter Senge explore how each leader can "make the future." Their conversation covers many of the Drucker themes his readers will recognize: the need to abandon the old, the need to build on successes, and the value of leading knowledge workers as if they were volunteers. Peter Senge is a skillful moderator, adding his own comments about the need to focus on creating rather that solving problems. The video package comes with a useful Viewer's Workbook and Notes for Facilitators. This video package is an inexpensive way to bring a provocative conversation into your organization.

As the title suggests, the scope of this book is vast. Drucker touches on the mega-trends affecting us ~ as individuals, consumers, students, workers, and voters. Interesting to read, especially since many of his projections of the future (remember this was written in 1989) are surprisingly correct:

1) Politicians in developed countries are increasingly becoming centrist, and function-oriented. Most political debate is focused on the means, not the goal. Chrisma is not needed.

2) The concept of government as the savior of society is dead. Instead, it will offer specific remedies for specific ills. The government cannot run the economy, but just help create the right climate for business, trade, and activity.

3) Society is segmenting into knowledge workers and non-knowledge workers (laborers). This concept runs through all his books.

4) Russia will segment and collapse. This will create imbalance as the majority of Russians are actually Asian and Muslim.

5) The military will continue to be a drag on the economy. Weapons will become increasingly counterproductive as the enemy unknown and elusive. Terrorism will rise, and the military will suffer an identity crisis.

6) The third sector (after the knowledge workers and manual laborers) will be non-profit. This serves a large function in society and provides many of the services once expected from the government. Volunteer hours totalling $150 billion (in imaginary wages).

7) Interest groups will continue to gain political influence. Drucker calls it the "tyranny of the small majority". These single cause minorities will be very vocal and usually against (rather than for) something.

8) In the transnational economy, cheap direct labor will no longer the way to competitiveness (since the portion of direct labor for goods is declining)

9) George Stigler, University of Chicago economist and Nobel prize winner, showed that NOT ONE of the regulations through which the US government tried to control, direct, or regulate the economy has worked. (pg 166)

10) Information based organizations should most resemble an orchestra. Each participant is a specialist and an individual contributor. They have separate responsibility and are expected to handle that work without direct supervision. Things get done, but only if the common objectives (the score) is clear and simple.

In the current world, almost everyone is a specialist. With a minor ailment, a patient may have to visit with several medical professionals before receiving an accurate diagnosis and treatment. Peter Drucker is the exception to that rule when it comes to social, governmental, organizational, and personal trends. He notices what is going on in each area, points out where the current direction is a dead end, and asks clear questions that point us toward creating our own solutions. Although this book was first published in 1989, it is more current now than before. The main reason is that so many of the social, political, organizational, and personal debates and experiments of the last ten years were first framed in this remarkable, ground-breaking work. I recently reread this book, and was struck that I understand what to do with it now much more than I did ten years ago when I first read it. Whether your interest is the Internet, entrepreneurship, lean manufacturing, charitable organizations, having less government, or more personal responsibility, this book is an essential guide. You will enjoy reading his prediction of the end of the Soviet empire only months before it ceased to exist. His crystal ball has been very clear so far. We need this clarity especially now as many of the first initiatives that he proposes have been successfully completed. The design is in this book for deciding what to do now.

I read the Arabic translation 20 years ago. I've trained as an engineer. Meanwhile, reading on political economy was one of my best interests. This book made the ultimate connection: The Concept of Efficiency. Since then I began to see the world in a very different way. The bigger the corporation, the more efficient it is, and the more beneficent. That's it. Corporation is GOD (It was the mistake of Microsoft to behave as an aggressive small business!). Corporation is the most likely patron of science and technology. It's simply the engine for evolution in modern civilization. Drucker's idea that corporations are made to serve not to profit is daring, sometimes hard to conceive, but in core... it's brilliant!

I read the Arabic translation 20 years ago. I've trained as an engineer. Meanwhile, reading on political economy was one of my best interests. This book made the ultimate connection: The Concept of Efficiency. Since then I began to see the world in a very different way. The bigger the corporation, the more efficient it is, and the more beneficent. That's it. Corporation is GOD (It was the mistake of Microsoft to behave as an aggressive small business!). Corporation is the most likely patron of science and technology. It's simply the engine for evolution in modern civilization. Drucker's idea that corporations are made to serve not to profit is daring, sometimes hard to conceive, but in core... it's brilliant!

Peter F. Drucker, born in 1918, is probably the 20st Century's greatest management thinker. He was Professor at New York University and currently teaches at the Graduate Management School of Claremont University, California. Drucker is the authors of numerous books and award-winning articles. This article was published in the January-February 1988 issue of the Harvard Business Review.

Drucker discusses the changes in the concept and structure of organizations from command-and-control organization to information-based organizations. The article discusses the transformation process - the availability of capital investment information changes the traditional budget exercise into an analysis of policy, the information-based organization requires more specialists overall than the command-and-control organization, and the information-based organization will have a flatter structure where the knowledge will be primarily at the bottom. Drucker also discusses the transformation of organizations, which is hard to decipher, but the author uses the hospital, the symphony orchestra, and the British administration in India to describe the various possibilities. Information-based organizations will also have different requirements: clear, simple, common objectives that translate into particular actions, and information responsibility to others and oneself. Finally, Drucker discusses the management problems facing information-based organizations: development of rewards, recognition, and career opportunities, creation of a unified vision, management structure for an organization of task forces, and the supply, preparation, and testing of top management people. According to Drücker, the job of building the information-based organization is the managerial challenge of the future.

Drucker has a reputation for predicting future trends and in this article he shows that skill again (do not forget that this article was written in 1988!). In simple terms he explains the challenges facing organizations turning from command-and-control into knowledge-based. For people that like the articles from Peter Drucker I recommend his (great value-for-money) book 'On the Profession of Management' (1998), which is a collection of 14 Harvard Business Review articles. The author uses simple US-English.

Too often books on the international gay rights movement focus too much upon Western nations or those nations heavily influenced by them (i.e., Israel or Puerto Rico). Drucker's book is a wonderful survey of the "gay and lesbian" rights movement in non-Western nations. He discusses Latin America, Africa, and Asia equally. The book is well-divided between men and women. There is a nice inclusion of transgender issues as well. Most interestingly, both constructionists and essentialists will be pleased with this book: this book does an excellent job in problematizing that every person in the world will want to "come out" and identify with a "gay" community, yet it avoids being overly postmodern or assuming that non-Westerners are not influenced by Western gay rights at all. Some of the articles are by whites or concentrate on whites who pushed gay rights in the Third World. Luckily, the position of those writers, and the editor himself, is acknowledged and called into question. For those who have done extensive readings on non-Western "homosexuality" (i.e., fans of Roscoe & Murray books), this book may seem repetitive and nothing new. For those who haven't, however, this book will be a breath of fresh air. I think that every gay man and lesbian of color who is concerned about homeland politics should grab a copy of this book immediately.

The three books of the Drucker Foundation Future series represent a wonderful collection of thinking by noted thought leaders. Each chapter in the LEADER of the FUTURE, the ORGANIZATION of the FUTURE, and the COMMUNITY of the FUTURE, is short, concise, and insightful. Authors include Peter Drucker, Stephen Covey, Peter Senge, Frances Hesselbein, Meg Wheatley, and others.

This package makes a wonderful gift for a student, a graduate, someone taking a new job, or someone hungry for renewal. The paperback editions of the books are attractive and easy to carry, and the boxed set is handsome.

At last a book on globalisation that avoids vague generalisations and dismal futurology. Robert Went presents the main economic arguments from an accessible, non-dogmatic Marxist perspective. This book would be a great tool for anyone involved in anti-globalisation mobilisations.

The Chinese have a proverb "first we have people who can recognise good horses, then we can have 1000-mile horses", suggesting wonderful things are everywhere, it only takes one who can appreciate wonders.

Drucker, in his unlikely autobiography, introduced some interesting and unforgettable characters at his times, entertains, educates and empowers us to think there are always equally interesting and unforgettable souls at our times, and probably at all times.

An enjoyable experience to have read this book, and more enjoyable experience when we can learn from him the passion and depth in appreciate people around us.

highly recommended.

Wonderful and a joy to read for anyone interested in the life and times of one of our best and among our first great management consultants. Drucker's stories are so enlightening in both a historical context and in terms of the develoment of the profession of management. Nothing has so thrilled me in appreciating this short history of western industrial civilization from the eyes of this original thinker. I review 10-20 books a year for different professional management journals but this is one of the most enjoyable as well as educational book I have ever read. Far beyond the work of Tom Peters and other known pundits, this is the work of a man with experience that easily transcends six decades. In a world of rush, rush and fads ad nauseaum this work is full of wisdom. Few other books would satisfy as well for anyone wanting to know about the man, his times and the forces that have created the management profession. Please tell Peter to get this book out to a wider audience and to bring several hundred copies to the 1998 Academy of Management meetings in San Diego this summer and I will try to bring my copy for his signature. This is the one book I have gotten up in the middle of the night to read just for the pure pleasure of reading. In fact last night at 4:30am I had to circle his commentary of "self governing workplace communities" so that in my own work I dont fail to cite the original source of ideas that many of us are researching and talking about today. Peter was only 50 years ahead of the field on this theme and I personally hope he will be around to help us develop these ideas for the next half century. ken

I laughed and I cried as I read Adventures of a Bystander. I have always had enormous respect for Professor Drucker, but this book has taken my respect and awe of him to another plateau. To learn how and what Professor Drucker thought as a child and how many momentous decisions he made by the time he was fourteen helps us understand him as a person and the environment from which all of his other works come. My grandmother also grew up in Austria and the "Grandmother stories" brought back very precious memories. Once again, even as a youngster, we see Professor Drucker uncannily knowing what will happen by studying (by living) the events of the times. One cannot really understand and appreciate Professor Drucker and his other works withour reading this book, and yet, reading many of his other works first, made me appreciate Adventures of a Bystander even more.

Even dated there is something to be learned from this book. Drucker is one of the few people who not only talks about the future of business but clarifies the present business climate. Even when he is wrong about what will happen, which he will be one of the first to say, he is smart enough to admit it and learn from it. Drucker gives solid practical advice and insight to all aspects of business. And more importantly what should be part of business. I give the book a B+ on the StuPage just because of it being dated.

Peter Drucker's greatest hits. That's the easiest way to describe this book, which compiles essays written by the ultimate management guru from 1991 to 1994. All of theses essays are about change: changes in the economy, society, business and in organizations in general. Drucker's advice on how managers should adjust to these tectonic shifts centers around the rise of the now ubiquitous knowledge worker and the global economy. As always, Drucker's analysis is far enough ahead of the curve that his 90s-era observations and conclusions are still relevant in the 21st century. We from getAbstract recommend this seamlessly organized book as the perfect introduction to one of the most important management thinkers of his generation.

Peter F. Drucker 1995 book is the expected counter scientific answer for Managers in a Time of great change. To manage complexity properly in all fields we always have had the need of a good theory so that we can make not only predictions but also controling our changing environment. The Drucker`s theory of Business is based on a fundamental schema he also uses in the most original theory of society we have ever heard. Transcending the traditional dualistic paradigm of dividing society into two sectors, the Public sector or Goverment and the Private sector or Business, Drucker propose a threefold schema, which can be very useful among all in, in those countries in which "the social sector" is a political mean to maintain the control of people at any price. In this sense he is completely right when he says that there are not poor countries, but countries bad administrated. The most important thing with Drucker thought is that is consistent, precise and why not scientific. Today when change is a fashion word this book is a great aid for those leaders interested to take their organization into a new stage of mankind.