In an earlier post, commenting on the death of Peter F. Drucker, I mentioned that the next book I would read would be one of Drucker's. Although I slipped in some other books first (Richard Florida's The Rise of the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class), I finished Drucker's The Practice of Management from 1954 about two weeks ago. I can now understand why Drucker is often called 'the Guru of Gurus'. Although his language is sometimes somewhat dated (or just typical 50s), he writes about management in a clear and concise way, discussing topics which are still being debated by management writers today. According to Drucker, management is made up of three things, namely managing a business, managing managers and managing worker and work. The work of the manager himself consists of five basic operations:
The Practice of Management is the book in which Drucker introduced Management by Objectives (MBO), which is very much the front runner of Kaplan and Norton's Balanced Scorecard. In essence a tool to establish alignment and implement strategy, it touches upon business architecture, the subject of my own book, as well, although indirectly. In conclusion I can say that I enjoyed reading my first Drucker book and believe that some more will follow in the future.
- Setting objectives
- Organizing
- Motivating and communicating
- Measuring
- Developing people
The Practice of Management is the book in which Drucker introduced Management by Objectives (MBO), which is very much the front runner of Kaplan and Norton's Balanced Scorecard. In essence a tool to establish alignment and implement strategy, it touches upon business architecture, the subject of my own book, as well, although indirectly. In conclusion I can say that I enjoyed reading my first Drucker book and believe that some more will follow in the future.
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