I think Drucker, even after all these years, still stands head and shoulders above the other management gurus, writers, and flash-in-the-pans that we've seen in recent decades. His thoughts and insights are still the most profound in the business and this recent book is no exception.

es un gran libro, como nos tiene acostumbrados el señor Drucker y les hará muy bien leerlo a los ejecutivos y managers cuyas empresas estan en problemas

Today when we almost fumble to keep ourselves running behind the rapid change this is something helpful.

Peter F. Drucker, born in 1918, is probably the 20st Century's greatest management thinker. He was Professor at New York University and is currently Professor at the Graduate Management School of Claremont University, California. This article was published in the January-February 1995 issue of the Harvard Business Review.

"Ever since the new data processing tools first emerged 30 to 40 years ago, businesspeople have both overrated and underrated the importance of information in the organization." This article deals with the tools executives require to generate the information they need and the concepts underlying those tools. Drucker discusses the shift from traditional cost accounting to activity-based costing; the shift from cost-led pricing to economic-chain costing; and the shift from cost control to wealth creation. Then, Drucker discusses the executive's diagnostic tools for managing the current business: foundation information (cash-flow, liquidity projections and standard ratio measurements), productivity information (EVA and benchmarking), competence information (innovation, innovative performance), and resource-allocation information (return on investment, payback period, cash flow, discounted present value). The author also makes suggestions on possibilities to improve strategic information systems. Grandmaster of Management Drucker eventually concludes that the traditional mind-set of buying cheap and selling dear has to be replaced by the new approach of adding value and creating wealth.

Again a great article from Peter Drucker. He describes in clear, understandable language the shifts in information tools and techniques in the last 50 years. He also provides clear insights in how to use the different kinds of information and what they can do for you. I recommend this article to all people interested in management. I also recommend it to MBA-students, for which it is handy for their accounting classes. The author uses simple US-English.

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 March-April 1999 issue of the Harvard Business Review.

Today, knowledge workers outlive organisations and are mobile. The need to manage oneself is therefore creating a revolution in human affairs. Drucker gives advise on the management of ourselves. We need to ask ourselves the following questions: What are my strengths?; How do I perform?; What are my values? The authors provides advise on how to answer these questions> Once these questions are answered we need to find out where we belong and what we should contribute. According to Drucker, "we will have to place ourselves where we can make the greatest contribution." But because we need to work with others we also need to take responsibility for our relationships. This requires us to accept other people as much as individuals as ourselves and take responsibility for communication. The author also identifies that most knowledge workers are not "finished" after 40 years on the job, "they are merely bored". He identifies three ways to develop a second career: (1) start one; (2) develop a parallel career; or (3) be a social entrepreneur. And managing the second half of your life requires you to begin with it before you enter it.

Great article by the Master of Management on how we can manage ourselves. He recognizes the latest trend whereby knowledge workers are outliving organizations which result in them having/creating second careers. He provides advise on where to locate yourself based on your strengths, performance, and values. This article is an exerpt from his 1999-book 'Management Challenges for the 21st Century'. As usual Drucker uses his famous simple US-English writing style. Highly recommended, just like all his articles.

Obviously, I liked the book. Drucker describes the pension fund industry and it's growing importance in the capital markets. But remember this is just a new edition of the 1976 classic "The unseen revolution" by Harper & Row (with a new preface)...

A great book that brings into focus the feelings that many people are experiencing. Our struggle for significance and not just success is an overwhelming desire.

This book will have an even greater audience post Sept.11.

This book is great, its readable, its affordable and it doesn't take a genius to understand it.

Nonetheless, every CIO should read it, before their CEOs get hold of a copy, this is dynamite and it comes in a handy book sized container, small enough to smuggle past the most keenest of corporate gate-keepers.

Charles Wang has written an excellent lessons learned document - the ultimate in structured intellectual capital - which, will no doubt fall on deaf ears, and be designed to oblivion along with 1,000,001 other great ideas, technology and software. On the other hand, maybe fate will be kind, and maybe corporate America will come to its senses and read this sound piece of advice.

Regards,

Martyn R Jones

Since it has only words, no graphics. it is really hard to read through. but I have to say, i's opion is great

REVIEW: This book has had a tremendous impact on management thinking and practice worldwide. As the first book to take an analytical study of a business corporation (GM) from the inside, many consider it to be the catalyst of the management boom that followed. It is certainly the first book to examine the business corporation as a social structure that brings together human beings for economic and social needs. The book is also a sort of bridge from Drucker's more political and social writings in "The End of Economic Man" and "The Future of Industrial Man" to his later more managerial writings. It is credited with having established management of organizations as a discipline and a distinct field of study. However, as a book originally published in 1946, is it still relevent and worth reading today? Yes, but not for everyone.

Drucker raised many new issues and concepts basic to organizations. For example, he touched upon: dignity and status of the worker, corporate purpose, corporate contribution to and harmonization with community, management compensation and succession, worker training and development, workers as resources not costs, etc. Since new ideas will tend to seep into the popular consciousness over time, many of the ideas he introduced have long since become popularized and accepted (e.g. the benefits of decentralization, suggestion plans, and reengineering). However, there are also a number the concepts which are not fully appreciated today or which we tend to just give lip service. For example, the basic concept of corporations as both economic and social institutions is still not fully appreciated or understood (neither by those on the "right" or the "left"). For me, the book was worth the read for these insights alone. In summary, I very much recommend this book if you've read some of Drucker's other writings and are interested in reading Drucker's founding writings on the corporation as both an economic and social organization. One option you may want to consider is to skip Part II which mostly discusses GM decentralization as a model.

STRENGTHS: Great thinking and understanding from Drucker on corporations as social structures. First thorough analytical look at a business corporation from the inside. Important economic concepts explained too (e.g. monopoly, profit motive).

WEAKNESSES: Some parts are rambling and others more concise. Part II of the book (more specific to 1940s GM and decentralization) is more outdated. Never a graph or equation to help understanding.

WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK: Those interested in understanding corporations as both economic and social organizations.

FOR SIMILAR/RELATED TOPICS, CONSIDER: Any of Peter Drucker's other books still in print. "My Years with General Motors" by Alfred Sloan. "Maslow on Management" by Abraham Maslow. "First Break All the Rules" by M. Buckingham & C. Coffman.

[feedback welcome]

A Man of Theory & a Man of Practice

In the early 1990s Peter Drucker wasn't one who fell in with those troubled over Japan's economy. Quite the opposite. Writing at the time, Drucker, considered by many "the seminal thinker on 20th-century business organization," called such pessimism "baseless." His reasoning?

During its recession, Japan never relinquished global market share in key sectors and led in the development of Asia. Indeed, as Japan reinvigorates itself, Drucker's confidence just might be prescient. And his forecasting doesn't leave off with Japan.

Drucker on Asia: A Dialogue Between Peter Drucker and Isao Nakauchi(Butterworth-Heinemann, 1997) features the correspondence spanning 1994 and 1995 of Drucker and Isao Nakauchi, founder and head of Daiei, Japan's largest retailer with sales of over $30 billion in 1996. Dated though the collection seems--it first appeared in Japan where Drucker enjoys the status of demigod--the topics are very much of the moment. The challenges posed by an emerging China and a Japan in the midst of reinvention can't be ignored. Thoughts on the evolution of our "knowledge society"--and the role corporations play in that evolution--are germane to all who'll inhabit planet earth 20 years hence.

What do the two have to say about the future? Certainly Drucker is the more robust of the pair in prognosticating the shape of society and the fate of countries in the order of things to come. This is, after all, Drucker on Asia. Nakauchi's comments, though, flesh out the exchange with practical examples of how he managed to build Daiei into one of the world's largest food retailers.

Reckoning with China

Drucker anticipates a multi-centric world economy emerging from what was a triadic relationship between the US, Japan and Western Europe. At the center of the Asian sphere is China--a country, in Drucker's estimation, offering investors a volatile mix of both the greatest dangers and greatest rewards.

The rewards are obvious. The Ninth Five-Year Plan, which is unofficial but attributable to the Chinese government and released after Drucker and Nakauchi had concluded their correspondence, projects China as the world's largest economy by 2030. To achieve this, the plan acknowledges, it will have to attract an immense amount of Western and Asian capital and completely privatize the 11,000 large state-owned enterprises.

But foreign capital isn't a given. Many investors are becoming less tolerant of China's fluctuating business climate. New government regulations introduced every six months send the wrong message to firms looking for stability.

Don't misunderstand, China continues to collect a massive amount of foreign direct investment. However, a recent Wall Street Journal article has the Chinese government bracing for a sizable drop this year. Foreign investment was strongest in 1995 at $92 billion, dipped slightly last year and will fall by an expected $7 billion in 1997.

Dependent nonetheless on money from abroad, China is doing much of its economy-building with help from overseas Chinese. The Chinese diaspora "constitute[s] an invisible economic network" building multinational corporations with little or no outside investment. Lacking a financial infrastructure, mainland China benefits from returning Chinese who provide money, "a critical mass of educated people," and a legal framework for doing business.

Idle Hands

Still, help from overseas Chinese and foreign investors may not have much bearing on the growing mass of unemployed peasants leaving the farm. The Ninth Five-Year Plan sets the goal of full employment and acknowledges that high unemployment could lead to social instability. This admission echoes one of Drucker's primary concerns.

Drucker cites Chinese dynasties toppled by peasant revolt and relates that in 1994 over 100 million peasants left their homes in a futile search for work. Nearly 200 million remained behind without work.

A recent Chinese Ministry of Labor report puts the figure of those currently idle in the hinterlands at 330 million. Astonishingly, the report adds, the entire Chinese work force--those employable but not necessarily employed--expands by 10 million people annually. Drucker worries about the very real possibility that the Chinese government will bungle this issue.

All in All

China's problems shouldn't repel investors. One should know the odds, though. Likening the growth prospects of China to Japan after the war, Drucker hastens to reiterate the risks involved in the proposition. "It is a gamble . . . in which a negative outcome is at least as likely as a positive one." Taking everything into consideration, Drucker asks, can a businessman afford to ignore China? He answers emphatically, "No."

Nakauchi takes to heart Drucker's "No." Long considering expansion into China, he takes it as his duty to help modernize China's distribution system. As it turned out, this was not a decision Nakauchi had to make on his own. In late 1995 Chinese Premier Li Peng requested the cooperation of Daiei in introducing the fundamentals of the Japanese distribution network into rural China.

Daiei had come a long way from its modest drugstore beginnings--a start that Nakauchi doesn't easily forget. In fact, he acknowledges the importance of 1957 as the year in which he embarked on a process of ceaseless business education.

Innovation in Sweets and Meat

It was in 1957 that Nakauchi opened his first store. Business in the first three days exceeded all expectations. On the fourth day a competitor opened nearby and began drawing away customers. To win patrons back Nakauchi conducted an informal poll asking what it was the store should sell. At the time the most popular pastime of a very poor Japan was to sit down with television-owning friends in front of the tube and share sweets. The people answered Nakauchi's question by urging him to offer . . . yes, that's right: sweets.

Nakauchi followed the advice of his patrons and sold sweets by weight as was the custom. The store was a hit again, crowded day after day. Soon a problem presented itself. Because of the slow method of service inherent in selling by weight servers couldn't meet demand. Throngs were turned away. Something had to be done. In what was considered a radical decision, Nakauchi pre-packaged sweets using a new product, the polyethylene bag.

Customers were hesitant. Before, they were able to sample a sweet before they purchased it. Of course, pre-packaging made this impossible. Nakauchi responded by offering a money-back guarantee to anyone dissatisfied. Few were. Nakauchi's first lesson, in his own words: "Innovation means parting with convention." He also happened to be the first to introduce pre-packaged servings at the meat counter.

A recounting of Nakauchi's business lesson segues perfectly into Drucker's vision of the adaptable information-based organization of tomorrow. Of most interest are his predictions on how the Japanese company will be reorganized. In 20 years the kachô or section chief will be a memory. There will be fewer senior executives. And as for the rest of the organization, a leveling will occur and "full information-responsibility" will be expected from each employee.

Drucker's thoughts are nothing short of unsettling to many Japanese since individual advancement in the Japanese company means moving into and through management positions. Nakauchi embraces Drucker's pronouncement, however, and answers with one of his own: "The understanding by executives of their responsibilities [in bringing about the company reorganization] will hold the key to the revitalization of Japan."

--Peter R. Tyksinski

For a book whose English language version is less than a year old, The title "Drucker on Asia" has not lasted well. You won't find much here that directly relates to Asia's current crisis of (economics) confidence, immature banks etc. The price for this slim book is also high. All this is a pity because there are various interesting lessons to be discovered in this published conversation between Peter Drucker and the Japanese Retail visionary Isao Nakauchi. One of my favourites has little directly to do with Asia - it stems from this question which Isao sets up for Peter to answer: "How can the individual and especially the individual in knowledge work maintain his or her effectiveness? Drucker replies by doing a few simple things well: 1) Maintain a goal or vision - his own "to keep on striving" means that one matures but does not age. 2) Take the view Phidias took of his own work "the Gods see it". People who take this view are not willing to do work that is only average; they have respect for the integrity of their work; in fact they have self-respect. 3) Build continuous learning into the way you live - Drucker has done this by taking up a new subject to study every 3 years of his life! 4) Like the Jesuits of the 16 century, build a review of your performance into your work. Do this by keeping a record of results/decisions and comparing these with previously enumerated expectations. This teaches you what you are good at and what you're not good at. I question whether these are simple things to do unto yourself, but then Drucker adds one more irresistible experience-based advisory:"Again and again, when I ask effective people to explain their success, I hear that a long-dead teacher or boss challenged them and taught them that whenever one changes one's work, one's position, one's assignment, one thinks through what the new job, the new position, the new assignment requires. Always it requires something different from what the preceding job or the preceding assignment required". I would be delighted to e-mail dilaogue with other readers of this book on favourite learnings. E-mail me at wcbn007@easynet.co.uk - Chris Macrae, editor of MELNET www.brad.ac.uk/branding/ and author of "Brand Chartering Handbook - how brand organisations learn living scripts".

Peter F. Drucker may have gone the way of Southwest Airlines. Just like the low-cost carrier is famous for its no-frills, comical service within its own niche of flying short, profitable routes, Mr. Drucker is considered the founding father of the very recently developed art of effective, result- oriented management. His adventure into the tumultuous world of today's fiction may be akin to Southwest's dangerous foray into the cutthroat business of flying long-distance routes. "The Last of All Possible Worlds" occurs in the world of upper-class European society of the transitional age just before World War I. Central to its story are: the aristocratic Polish Prince Sobieski, a wealthy landowner, businessman, and the Austro-Hungarian diplomat to Great Britain; Hinton, a mathematics historian and an immensely successful banker; and the wealthy Jewish banker Mosenthal. "An Die Musik" completes the quartet. Sobieski's fourth of the novel takes place over only a few days, but seemingly all of the narration is either a look back into his long and eventful past or an insipid description of his daily duties. His dry, dull rise through diplomatic circles, countless one-night stands, and quixotic adventures with two lovers hardly arouses immediate interest, nor does it prove to contribute to the recital of the basic story, if there is any. Throughout the book, terms unfamiliar to most people, including élève, beau sabreur, Doppelgänger, jeune fille, ein Gebildeter Mensch, and even whole sentences (Ce pauvre homme; Je suis Grèque, vous saves, mais j étais née Egypte; Wo mich des Lebens wilder Kreis umstrickt) appear, presumably to express certain thoughts that English is not suitable for. The over-frequent references to European history, such as the Polish Soldier-King Sobieski of the late seventeenth century who freed Vienna from the Turks in 1683 and the Paris Commune of 1871 and the ensuing Prussian siege, would fluster the ordinary, perhaps even the well-educated, reader. Mr. Drucker's proclivity for erudite colloquy is evident in his narrative style. No less puzzling is the portrayal of the mathematical genius Hinton, who figures out his life by studying his mantra of Riemann's saying, "Don't define a problem, organize the set." Through long-winded examinations of three previous situations in which his life took major turns due to the financial scandals those around him had gotten involved in, Hinton discovers what he must do when a prominent English lord he has ties to is caught operating a counterfeiting operation in the French Riviera. Although the underlying thesis and focus of Hinton's struggle to act properly to salvage a bank are quite clear, Mr. Drucker strays off several times into half-riveting, though irrelevant, accounts of minor acquaintances of Hinton such as psychologist Dr. Ferenczi. He proposes the "Oedipus Complex" in which little boys develop libidinous feelings for their mothers and repulse their fathers. Although Mr. Drucker's novel begins like a typical fiction book, with characters engaging in relationships and having adventures, it quickly becomes obvious that he cannot restrain himself from discussing business. There are traces of explanations of the intricacies of banking and managing in Sobieski's section, but it begins in earnest with Hinton. Mosenthal's fourth of the book is filled with references to the Jewish styles of banking and management of Sobieski's estates, not to mention ambitious plans to industrialize backward, rural Austria and Hungary through the development of railways financed by the three men. "An Die Musik" is both a name of portrait of a woman fifty years older than she was in another portrait and a musical composition by Franz Schubert. This last fourth of the book hardly ties together the disparate story of the first three parts, though few, certainly not Mr. Drucker, could have written a conclusion capable of resolving the story. He has proven himself one of the best and most respected thinkers on management and society, but that is as far as he ought to go. Other airlines endangered themselves by leaving their niches, as Southwest may be doing. Mr. Drucker's endeavor into fiction has not been successful; he must stick with his specialty. After all, as he himself would say, "You've got to go with what works."