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Management Challenges for the 21st Century (Paperback)
by Peter F. Drucker
| Category:
Management, Leadership, Business |
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| MSL Pointer Review:
Drucker's first major book since Post-Capitalist Society (1993) |
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Author: Peter F. Drucker
Publisher: Collins
Pub. in: June, 2001
ISBN: 0887309992
Pages: 224
Measurements: 8 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
Origin of product: USA
Order code: BA00026
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- MSL Picks -
Peter Drucker, an editorial columnist for the Wall Street Journal, a consultant and writer has been duly noted as one of the world's most respected management thinkers. His books, over 20 of them, have been called the "landmarks of the managerial profession" by the Harvard Business Review. He has always been a step ahead of the curve of the latest in business thought. In 1954 he espoused the idea of 'teams.' In 1969 he proposed the 'knowledge workers' concept.
Here Drucker lays out six of the 'new' challenges facing the businesses of the early 21st century.
First involves management's new paradigm of organizational structure and managing people. There is no 'one size fits all' approach. The method or combinations of methods that may be required are ultimately determined by what the customer considers is 'value.' Employees of the future may be treated as partners and volunteers, 'persuaded' rather than 'ordered.'
The next challenge is the new certainties of the coming business landscape. The collapsing birthrate and the shift in the distribution of income need to be studied and planned for. Global competitiveness is a must for survival. Performance needs to be redefined for the organization on more than just short-term gains in order to inspire and commit 'knowledge workers' to their mission.
Third is becoming a change leader. Educate others that change equals opportunity. Regularly abandon activities that no longer produce results. Enhance practices that have been working by exploiting and publishing their success throughout the company. Study what is working or not in the market with other companies. Don't confuse motion with action.
Fourth are the information challenges. The purpose of information is not knowledge but being able to take the right action. Success is based on the creation of value and wealth in the eyes of the customer. Information needed would include the normal foundation information as well as productivity, competence and allocation of scarce resources information.
The fifth challenge lies in vitalizing 'knowledge workers' into high productivity. Attention should be given to all ways to make this asset grow. Differing from manual laborers, knowledge workers carry the 'means of production' within them and rely less on a specific employer for work.
The sixth challenge is managing ourselves. The biggest possible increase in production lies here. Intellectual arrogance promotes disabling ignorance. Concentrate on your strengths. Avoid trying to change yourself. Ask yourself what your strengths are. Determine how you work. Do you like to work alone? Would you prefer to be an advisor or a decision maker? What are your values? This type of questioning will help determine where you belong. Most of our careers will involve changing organizations at least once. You must learn what makes 'you' tick. Five stars! (From quoting Peter Valentine, USA)
Target readers:
Executives, managers, entrepreneurs, professionals, government and nonprofit leaders, and MBAs.
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Peter F. Drucker was considered one of management's top thinkers. As the author of more than 35 books, his ideas have had an enormous impact on shaping the modern corporation. In 2002, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. During his lifetime, Drucker was a writer, teacher, philosopher, reporter, consultant, and professor at the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University.
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Peter F. Drucker discusses how the new paradigms of management have changed and will continue to change our basic assumptions about the practices and principles of management. Forward-looking and forward-thinking, Management Challenges for the 21st Century combines the broad knowledge, wide practical experience, profound insight, sharp analysis, and enlightened common sense that are the essence of Drucker's writings and "landmarks of the managerial profession."
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Kirkus Reviews (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-25 00:00>
The master of management theory (Managing for the Future, 1992, etc.) combines a succinct vision of what's ahead with a condensed training course for weathering the change. Looking toward the future, Drucker analyzes the forces that will impact society and business and describes how the structure of organizations must change in order to deal with them. As a prelude to his outline for managing change (and changing management) he dismisses some concepts for example, the idea that there is only a single correct organizational structure for a given situation. Drucker suggests considering the modern employee as a "volunteer," motivated to work by a deeper power than the paycheck. Similarly, he states that in the modern workplace a more apt role for a manager is as "leader,'' not boss. Other changes affecting business are the "crisscross'' impact of technologies and the emergence of the "transnational'' organization. Like most of Druckers two dozen or so previous works, this one goes beyond analysis to application. Two of the key arguments in his outline for action: companies need "change leaders'' who see change as opportunity, and organizations must learn how to "exploit success.'' Information technology, a major component of the coming century, is described through the historical perspective of the printing press, then updated with consideration of the Internet, a major new method for the distribution of information in printed form. Drucker believes that, just as traditional management was instrumental in increasing productivity for manual work, modern management must be transformed to play a similar part in the increase in the productivity for "knowledge work,'' the biggest management challenge of the next century. Finally, he explains that as "individuals can expect to outlive organizations,'' they must have unique responsibilities in order to survive, if not thrive. Invaluable advice for building a business bridge to the 21st century. |
An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-25 00:00>
Peter Drucker has a beautiful mind, forever fresh and overflowing with innovative thoughts. This book, published just as the master of management began his tenth decade of life, shows him at his perpetual best. The text carries with it the sweeping knowledge, deep experience, and astute analysis that a reader might expect from Drucker at this point in his life. But you will find no timid conservatism, no holding on to safe ground here. Drucker has made a lifelong habit of leading the way in business thought and this book confirms that he just can't help himself.
In contrast to the typical business book which is 200 pages too long, every chapter and every page of Management Challenges for the 21st Century relentlessly tweaks the noses of bad assumptions while focusing our attention on the future. Drucker pulls together diverse trends and forces to map out the truly new management challenges. His first chapter, "Management's New Paradigms" argues that organizations (or what ManyWorlds calls "business architecture") will have to become part of the executive's toolbox, yet we continue to operate on outdated assumptions about the role and domain of management.
Fortunately much recent management thinking explicitly challenges one assumption pulled apart by Drucker: The idea that the inside of the organization is the domain of management. This assumption, says Drucker, "explains the otherwise totally incomprehensible distinction between management and entrepreneurship". These are two aspects of the same task. Management without entrepreneurship (and vice versa) cannot survive in a world where every organization must be "designed for change as the norm and to create change rather than react to it."
Although Drucker is intent on uprooting old certainties and focusing organizations on constant change, he does not leave the reader without a compass. In the second chapter, "Strategy-The New Certainties", Drucker says that strategy allows an organization to be "purposefully opportunistic" and explains five certainties around we can shape our strategy. While other writers have addressed a couple of these, too little attention has been paid to some of the inevitabilities analyzed here, including the collapsing birthrate, shifts in the distribution of disposable income, and the growing incongruence between economic globalization and political splintering.
The book's third chapter, "The Change Leader", gives Drucker's unique perspective on the need for 21st organizations to be change leaders. "One cannot *manage* change. One can only be ahead of it." Change leaders have four qualities. They create policies to make the future which means not only continual improvement but “organized abandonment” - a practice still almost unknown in practice. Contrary to typical company reactions, change leaders will starve problems and feed opportunities. For Drucker this means, in part, having a policy of systematic innovation and - in tune with recent calls for new budgetary practices - having two separate budgets to ensure that the future-creating budget is not stopped off in difficult times.
Strong as the first chapters are, I found the other chapters of this book even more incisive. The reader may come away with the sense that many of Drucker's points are obvious, but will realize that they only *became* obvious after hearing them. In his chapter on "Information Challenges", Drucker gives his own, historically-rich, controversial, and provocative take on our current information revolution - the fourth such revolution, he says).
The man who coined the term "knowledge worker" has no shortage of fresh thoughts in the chapter on "Knowledge-Worker Productivity", and has profoundly important things to say in the final chapter on "Managing Oneself". Management Challenges for the 21st Century is, of course, essential reading for aspiring manager-entrepreneurs in these confusing times. As for aspiring business writers, I can only say: Read it and weep!
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Mitchell Kirschner (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-25 00:00>
Peter Drucker is a thinker who gets to the heart of issues and can make one see the world, and one's self, in a different way.
That may seem like a grandiose claim for what, on the surface, is merely a business book. But if you're the least bit familiar with Drucker's numerous books and articles, written over a 60-year career, you already suspect that this isn't a mere business book. We live in times of turbulent change. Drucker's task is to make us SEE, to give us guiding insights and principles. He illuminates the deeper forces of history, of economics, of society, which managers in ALL kinds of institutions - hospitals, universities, churches, nonprofits, governments, and of course businesses - will inevitably face. Drucker not only calls for a new paradigm of management, but he outlines that new paradigm - and more importantly, contrasts it with the old paradigm. The word paradigm itself has become cliché, but Drucker's analysis is hardly fluffy or faddish.
And that's just in the first chapter. In the rest of this brief (207 pages) but potent book, he expounds (as evidenced by the chapter titles) on the following themes: Strategy - The New Certainties; The Change Leader; Information Challenges; Knowledge-Worker Productivity; Managing Oneself. The latter chapter alone - which is about managing one's career(s) in light of the insights provided in the foregoing chapters - is alone worth the price of admission. There are several small gems of practical advice in that chapter alone, and it also gives one food for ongoing thought (as does the rest of the book).
As Drucker himself concludes, this book is ultimately not about the future of management. It's about the future of society. In reading it (or any of Drucker's other works), you get the sense you're in the presence of a great thinker who has a passion for truth. This book isn't just for managers, it's for all "knowledge workers" who seek a sophisticated perspective on deep historical forces which will affect everybody in all developed countries. Drucker consciously intended - and in my opinion succeeded - to write a practical book for people who aren't afraid to think and challenge their assumptions about the world and themselves. Drucker's focus is ultimately on *action*. He doesn't give recipes, he gives questions, insights, and principles on which to formulate actions and make decisions. He even offers advice on how to get the most out of his book.
A couple of notes about Drucker's writing style, for those who haven't read him before: Drucker's prose and word rhythms can sometimes be quirky. He has a fondness for occasionally "quoting" words and for EMPHASIZING THINGS IN CAPITAL LETTERS. He's not a fuzzy-minded loudmouth, though. That's part of his natural, unpretentious style, and his message doesn't suffer for it.
Also, in this particular book, Drucker uses a layout technique which I initially found to be confusing, but I eventually came to appreciate. He sprinkles the entire book - without warning or explanation - with paragraphs that are indented further in from the "main" paragraphs. At first I thought he was quoting himself from his earlier works. But I finally realized that the indented paragraphs are "meat", in the form of specific examples or historical references. Once I figured that out, they didn't bother me, and in fact I appreciated the layout.
In summary: read this book! It's much more worthwhile than most business or change-your-life seminars, which can cost hundreds of times more. |
Jean-Claude le Gal (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-25 00:00>
This is the invitation made by Peter F. Drucker in his book: Management challenges for the 21st century. The author writes: "Reading this book will upset and disturb a good many people, as writing it disturbed me" and "It is a very different book from the one I originally envisaged". These two sentences explain that the pressure of the future is so already with us that ideas coming to the author have difficulties to organize on the paper. But this stressing environment gives one of the best book of Peter F. Drucker with issues not to be ignored by knowledge-workers and executives who will have to work on them to make sure to be among the leaders of tomorrow.
In the 2 first chapters, we are sharing ideas from the Management's assumptions, which are no more valid in the "New Economy" to The New Certainties on which very few organizations and very few executives are working on and are invited to a call for action in front of a period of a profound transition.
In Chapter 3, Peter F. Drucker is describing, the Change leader, which mission will not be to manage change, because it is not possible to manage change, but to be ahead of it. Different recommendations are given, but the more important one is piloting the change to permanently test reality. If making the future is highly risky, it is less risky than not trying to make it in a period of upheavals, such as the one we are living in.
In chapter 4, the author convinces us that IT Information Technology has to move from the T to the I. That means that Technology as such is not the concern of executives when Information is. It is true that executives did not get always, with the Information Technologies Revolution, the Information they need for acting. But Information requires also to move from internal information to external Information, because strategy is mainly based on the last one. Information being the key resource for knowledge workers asks to be organized at individual and group level to anticipate and avoid surprises in front of significant events and to prepare for action.
In chapter 5, after discovering that the main contribution of management in the 20th century was the fifty-fold increase of productivity of the manual-worker in manufacturing, we are presented the challenge for the 21st century as being the increase of knowledge-worker productivity. The move there is from quantity measurement to quality measurement of an agreed defined task of a knowledge-worker, which is part of a growing population in developed countries. Knowledge-workers, owning their means of production, the knowledge between their ears, are becoming assets instead of costs. And if costs need to be controlled and reduced, assets need to be made to grow. This means a change of attitude of management but also of corporation governance who have to find balance between the interests of shareholders and knowledge-workers contributing to the wealth of the organization.
In the final chapter, we are presented the impact of all previous evolutions on the individual knowledge-worker, who will have to manage himself in this new environment. This is a real revolution in mentalities due to two new realities: workers are likely to outlive organizations, and the knowledge worker has mobility the manual-worker did not have. Partnership is becoming an answer to these changes with all the consequences for the individual who has to ask himself: "what should be my contribution" and "where and how can I have results that make a difference", yes a real revolution already there.
Management Challenges for the 21st Century is giving the basics to enter the period of profound transition we know with the arrival of the "New Economy" and will make the difference for the people who read this book. We really have to thank Peter F. Drucker for this important contribution at the age of 90, a masterpiece after more than sixty years devoted to management development.
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