Books by Peter Drucker

Outline of Drucker Books

All of these are attention directing tools.

An organization is a special-purpose institution ::: A human group composed of specialists — not labors — working together on a common task ::: The function of organizations to make knowledge productive ::: The more specialized knowledges are, the more effective they will be ::: Have to be put together with the work of other specialist to become #results — outside the organization ::: Knowledges by themselves are sterile ::: Specialist are effective only as specialists — and knowledge workers have to be effective ::: The most highly effective knowledge workers do not want to be anything but narrow specialists #ntea ::: Specialist need exposure to the universe of knowledge, but they need to work as specialists and to concentrate on being specialist ::: And for this to produce results, an organization is needed ::: Organization as a distinct species ::: All one species … Armies, Churches, Universities, Hospitals, Businesses, Labor unions ::: They are the man-made environment, the “social ecology” of post-capitalist society ::: Management is a generic function pertaining to all organizations

Knowledge-based management

The characteristics of organizations ::: Organizations are special-purpose institutions ::: They are effective because they concentrate on one task ::: In an organization, diversification means splintering ::: It destroys performance capacity ::: Organization is a tool ::: The more specialized its given task, the greater its performance capacity ::: Its mission must be crystal clear ::: Because the organization is composed of specialists ::: Each with his or her own narrow knowledge ::: Otherwise its members become confused ::: They will follow their specialty ::: Rather than applying it to the common task ::: They will each define “#results” in terms of that specialty — imposing their own values on the organization ::: Only a clear, focused, and common mission can hold the organization together and enable it to produce #results ::: The prototype of the modern organization is the symphony orchestra ::: Many high-grade specialists ::: By themselves they don’t make music. Only the orchestra can do that ::: Perform because they have the same score ::: # Results exist only on the outside ::: Organizations exist to produce results on the outside ::: Results in an organization are always pretty far away from what each member contributes ::: Results need to be defined clearly and unambiguously and, if at all possible, measurably ::: Organizations need to appraise and judge itself and its performance against clear, known, impersonal #objectives and goals ::: “Voluntary” membership and the ability to leave an organizations ::: Organizations are always in competition for its essential resource qualified, knowledgeable, dedicated people ::: Need to market membership (what do the jobs really have to be to attract the needed people) ::: Have to attract people ::: Have to hold people ::: Have to recognize and reward people ::: Have to motivate people ::: Have to serve and satisfy people ::: Has to be an organization of equals, of “colleagues,” of “associates” ::: The position of each is determined by its contribution to the common task rather than by any inherent superiority or inferiority ::: Must be organized as a team of “associates” ::: They are always managed ::: Have “leaders” ::: May be perfunctory and intermittent ::: Or may be a full-time and demanding job for a fairly large group of people ::: Have to be people who make decisions ::: or nothing will get done ::: Have to be people who are accountable for the organization’s mission, spirit, performance, results ::: Must be a “conductor” who controls the “score” ::: There have to be people who: focus the organization on its mission; set the strategy to carry it out; define what the results are ::: This management has to have considerable authority ::: Yet its job in the knowledge organization is not to command; it is to direct (and inspire) ::: To be able to perform, an organization must be autonomous ::: Cannot be used to carry out “government policy”

Organization as a destabilizer #jump #lter #psdapa #sda ::: The organization of the post-capitalist society of organizations is a destabilizer ::: Its function is to put knowledge to work on tools, processes, and products + on knowledge itself ::: #horizons   It must be organized for constant change ::: It must be organized for #innovation ::: It must be organized for systematic abandonment of … the established, the customary, the familiar, the comfortable, products, services, and processes, human and social relationships, skills, organizations themselves (#wgobcd) ::: Knowledge changes fast ::: Today’s certainties will be tomorrow’s absurdities ::: Skills change slowly and infrequently ::: Changes that most profoundly affect a knowledge do not, as a rule, come out of its own area ::: Social innovation is as important as new science or new technology in creating new knowledges and in making old ones obsolete ::: Purposeful innovation has itself become an organized discipline ::: Which is both teachable and learnable ::: Every organization has to build into its very structure the management of change ::: Organized abandonment ::: Increasingly, organizations will have to plan abandonment rather than try to prolong the life of a successful policy: practice, or product—something which so far only a few large Japanese companies have faced up to (#wgobcd) ::: The ability to create the new (three systematic practices) ::: Continuing improvement of everything it does (Kaizen) ::: What every artist does ::: Aim is to improve each product or service so that it becomes a truly different product or service in two or three year’s time ::: Learn to exploit ::: Develop new applications from its own successes ::: Learn how to innovate ::: Every organization will have to learn how to innovate and to learn that innovation can and should be organized as a systematic process ::: Then we come back to abandonment and we start all over again

Post-capitalist society has to be decentralized (#sda #horizons) ::: Its organizations must be able to make fast decisions based on closeness to performance, to the market, to technology, to the changes in society, environment, and demographics, all of which must be seen and utilized as (REAL not imagined) opportunities for innovation ::: Organizations in the post-capitalist society thus constantly upset, disorganize, and destabilize the community (#horizons #sda) ::: The “culture” of the organization must transcend community ::: It is the nature of the task that determines the culture of an organization, rather than the community in which that task is being performed ::: If the organization’s culture clashes with the values of the community the organization’s culture will prevail or else the organization will not make its social contribution ::: “Knowledge knows no boundaries” ::: Of necessity every knowledge organization is of necessity non-national, non-community ::: Even if totally embedded in the local community

The employee society ::: Another way to describe the phenomenon of the society of organizations ::: Employees who work in subordinate and menial occupations ::: Service workers ::: The wage earner, the “worker” of yesterday ::: Knowledge workers ::: 1/3 of the work force ::: They own the “means of production” ::: Cannot, in effect, be supervised ::: Cannot be told what to do, how to do it, how fast to do it and so on ::: Unless they know more than anybody else in the organization they are to all intents and purposes useless ::: They hold a crucial card in their mobility ::: Organizations and knowledge workers are interdependent ::: “Loyalty” will have to be earned by proving to knowledge employees that the organization which presently employs them can offer them exceptional opportunities to be effective ::: Capital now serves the employee ::: From command and control to information-based to responsibility-based organizations (#responsibility #information word stem #contribut) ::: The Society of Organizations text society of organizations brainroad

Peter Drucker: Conceptual Resources

The Über Mentor

A political / social ecologist
a different way of seeing and thinking about
the big picture
— lead to his top-of-the-food-chain reputation

about Management (a shock to the system)

 

Why Peter Drucker Distrusted Facts (HBR blog)

 

“I am not a ‘theoretician’; through my consulting practice I am in daily touch with the concrete opportunities and problems of a fairly large number of institutions, foremost among them businesses but also hospitals, government agencies and public-service institutions such as museums and universities.

And I am working with such institutions on several continents: North America, including Canada and Mexico; Latin America; Europe; Japan and South East Asia.” — PFD

 

 

List of his books

 

Large combined outline of Drucker’s books — useful for topic searching.

 

 

“High tech is living in the nineteenth century,
the pre-management world.
They believe that people pay for technology.
They have a romance with technology.
But people don't pay for technology:
they pay for what they get out of technology.” —
The Frontiers of Management

“It is only our lack of complete information
that makes it necessary for us to think”

The traditional notion in education that information is sufficient is old-fashioned and dangerous

“In addition to information

we need #ideas.

Ideas are
the spectacles
through which
we look
at information.”

‘An #idea
can never
make the best use
of available information
because
information trickles into the mind
over a period of time
the idea patterns set up
cannot be as good
as if
all the information
arrived at once.’ continue

 

“One does not pay attention to everything.

 

And one acts
only upon what one is
paying attention to.

 

(A Century of Social Transformation)

 

The reaction may be #thinking or it may be action (which is only thinking that passes through our mouths or our muscles instead of our minds).

The world around is full of a huge number of things to which one could pay attention.

But it would be impossible to react to everything at once.

So one reacts only to a selected part of it.

 

The choice of attention area
determines
the action or thinking
that follows.

 

The choice
of this area of attention
is one of the most fundamental
aspects of thinking.”

Very powerful ::: TLN Insights ::: #adt #edb

 

The thinking
needed
to get things done:

Getting the RIGHT things done and avoiding the four realities of an executive’s situation that push them toward futility

Is it a problem or an important decision?

Career Performance or trivial pursuit

objectives, priorities, alternatives,
other people's views,
creativity, decisions, choices, planning,
consequences of action operacy

Keywords: tlnkwdruckerbooks

“The greatest danger in times of turbulence is not turbulence;

it is to act with yesterday’s logic”. — Peter Drucker

The shift from manual workers
who do as they are being told —
either by the task or by the boss —

TO knowledge workers
who have to manage themselves ↓

profoundly challenges social structure …

“Managing Oneself (PDF) is a REVOLUTION in human affairs.” …

“It also requires an almost 180-degree change in the knowledge workers’ thoughts and actions from what most of us—even of the younger generation—still take for granted as the way to think and the way to act.” …

… “Managing Oneself is based on the very opposite realities:
Workers are likely to outlive organizations (and therefore, employers can’t be depended on for designing your life),

and the knowledge worker has mobility.” ← in a context

“More than anything else,

the individual
has to take more responsibility
for himself or herself,
rather than depend on the company.”
continue ↓

“Making a living is no longer enough
‘Work’ has to make a life .” continue

… finding and selecting the pieces of the puzzle

The Second Curve

These pages are attention directing tools for navigating a world moving relentlessly toward unimagined futures.

What’s the next effective action on the road ahead

It’s up to you to figure out what to harvest and calendarize
— working something out in time (1915, 1940, 1970 … 2040 … the outer limit of your concern) — nobody is going to do it for you.

It may be a step forward to actively reject something (rather than just passively ignoring) and then working out a plan for coping with what you’ve rejected.

Your future is between your ears and our future is between our collective ears — it can’t be otherwise.

A site exploration: The memo THEY don't want you to see

What needs doing?

Copyright 1985 through 2022 © All rights reserved | bobembry bobembryusa bobembry.usa | bob embry robert embry | “time life navigation” ^© #TimeLifeNavigation | “life TIME investment system” ^© #LifeTimeInvestmentSystem | “career evolution” ^© #CareerEvolution | “life design” ^© #LifeDesign | “organization evolution” ^© #OrganizationEvolution | “brainroads toward tomorrows” ^© #BrainroadsTowardTomorrows | “foundations for future directed decisions” ^© #FoundationsForFutureDirectedDecisions | #rlaexpdotcom ^© | rlaexpdotcom ^©

#rlaexp.com = rla + exp = real life adventures + exploration or explored

exploration leads to explored

Examples ↑ can be found through web searches, Wikipedia,
Pinterest and the daily news