 About management: what it does, what it is, seen as a liberal art
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All of the following is by Peter Drucker.
My observations: Although it may not be immediately obvious all of the following doesn't happen at one time. All of the following is not limited to one time dimension -- see organization evolution definition. When successful, management creates new realities which bring about new external conditions that are not limited to the industry in which it originated. The reality created by the success of the automobile are not limited to the automobile industry. Management is not something that is superimposed on an existing set of products, services, operations or activities so that they are just more efficient. Management is not about coordinating the functions, departments or divisions of an organization. |
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What management does
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Because the knowledge society perforce has to be a society of organizations, its central and distinctive organ is management.
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 When we first began to talk of management, the term meant "business management"—since large-scale business was the first of the new organizations to become visible.
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But we have learned this last half-century that management is the distinctive organ of all organizations.
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All of them require management—whether they use the term or not.
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All managers do the same things whatever the business of their organization.
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1. All of them have to bring people—each of them possessing a different knowledge—together for joint performance.
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2. All of them have to make human strengths productive in performance and human weaknesses irrelevant.
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3. All of them have to think through what are "results" in the organization—and have then to define objectives.
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4. All of them are responsible to think through what I call the "theory of the business," that is, the assumptions on which the organization bases its performance and actions, and equally, the assumptions which organizations make to decide what things not to do.
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5. All of them require an organ that thinks through strategies, that is, the means through which the goals of the organization become performance.
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6. All of them have to define the values of the organization, its system of rewards and punishments, and with its spirit and its culture.
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7. In all of them, managers need both the knowledge of management as work and discipline, and the knowledge and understanding of the organization itself, its purposes, its values, its environment and markets, its core competencies.
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Management history
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Management as a practice is very old. The most successful executive in all history was surely that Egyptian who, 4700 years or more ago, first conceived the pyramid- without any precedent-designed it and built it, and did so in record time. Unlike any other work of man built at that time that first pyramid still stands.
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But as a discipline, management is barely fifty years old.
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It was first dimly perceived around the time of World War I. It did not emerge until World War II, and then primarily in the United States.
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Since then, it has been the fastest-growing new function, and its study the fastestgrowing new discipline. No function in history has emerged as fast as management and managers have in the last fifty to sixty years, and surely none has had such worldwide sweep in such a short period.
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Management, in most business schools, is still taught as a bundle of techniques, such as the technique of budgeting. To be sure, management, like any other work, has its own tools and its own techniques. But just as the essence of medicine is not the urinalysis, important though it is, the essence of management is not techniques and procedures.
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The essence of management is to make knowledges productive.
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Management, in other words, is a social function. And in its practice, management is truly a "liberal art." See below
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What is management?
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Is it?
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Techniques
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Tricks
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Analytical tools
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Its evolution & history teach that it is a few, essential principles
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1. Joint human performance
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Management’s task
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Make people capable of joint performance
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Strengths effective
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Weaknesses irrelevant
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This is what organization is all about
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2. Management is embedded in culture
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In developing countries, the manager’s basic challenge
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Find and identify building blocks that can be used in how they manage
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Tradition
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History
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Culture
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3. Direction
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Commitment to …
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Common goals
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Clear
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Public
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Often reaffirmed
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Shared values
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Without commitment there is no enterprise, there is only a mob
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Objectives
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Simple
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Clear
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Unifying
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Mission—big enough & clear enough to provide common vision
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Management’s job … those objectives, values, goals
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Think through
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Set
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Exemplify
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4. Growth and development
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As needs and opportunities change
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The enterprise …
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Learning and teaching institution
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Training and development
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Built into all levels
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Each of its members
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Never stops
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5. Communication and individual responsibility
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Enterprise is composed of people of…
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Different skills
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Different knowledge
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Doing many different kinds of work
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All members need to think through what they …
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Aim to accomplish
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Make sure associates
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Know
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Understand
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Owe to others
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Make sure associates
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Understand
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Approve
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Need from others
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Make sure associates
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Know what is expected of them
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6. Performance
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Neither quantity of output nor “bottom line” is by itself an adequate measure of management and enterprise
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Built into …
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Enterprise
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Its management
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Measured or at least judged
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Diversity of measures (just like human health or performance)
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Areas crucial to a company’s performance and survival
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Market standing
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Innovation
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Productivity
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Development of people
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Quality
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Financial results
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Continuously improved
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7. Outside results
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The single most important thing to remember
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Results exist only on the outside
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Inside an enterprise, there are only costs.
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Business
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Satisfied customer
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Hospital
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Healed patient
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School
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Student learned something
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Puts it to work ten years later
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Achieving, accomplished managers …
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Understand these principles
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Function in their light
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Management as a liberal art
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Management is a technology
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Deals with action and application
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Its test are results
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Management is a humanity
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Deals with people & their …
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Values
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Growth & development
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Concern with and impact on …
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Social structure
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Community
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Deeply involved in spiritual concerns
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Nature of man
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Good and evil
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Management is a liberal art
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Liberal
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Deals with fundamentals of …
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Knowledge
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Self-knowledge
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Wisdom
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Leadership
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Art
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Practice
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Application
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Managers …
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Draw on all the knowledges and insights of the humanities and the social sciences
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Psychology and philosophy
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Economics and history
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Physical sciences
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Ethics
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Focus this knowledge on effectiveness and results
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Healing a sick patient
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Teaching a student
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Building a bridge
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Designing and selling a “user-friendly” software program
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Management will increasingly be the discipline and the practice through which the “humanities” will again acquire …
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Recognition
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Impact
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Relevance
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Management and the World's Work See essential management principles diagram and strategic chain
Amazon link: Managing in a Time of Great Change
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“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 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.” …
These pages are attention directing tools for navigating a world moving toward unimagined futures. It may be a step forward to actively reject something (rather than just passively ignoring) and then figure out a coping plan for 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 starting point
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