The Essential Drucker.

 
Peter F. Drucker 
Harper Business, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers: 2001 
368 Pages; $30.00/$44.95 Canada 
Hard Cover 

A new book by Peter Drucker! This news is always greeted with excitement, but your excitement might be tempered by learning that The Essential Drucker is not a book of new writings; rather, it is a collection of chapters from Drucker's books, as far back as 1954 and as recently as 1999. Despite the lack of new material, readers should not be disappointed because this is a most valuable and interesting collection of Drucker's work- it might truly embody the "Essential Drucker" to this point in his career. (After all, Drucker at 91 is still writing, teaching, and consulting brilliantly.)

The Essential Drucker is an excellent place to begin a study of Drucker, of management, of the nature of work and organizations, and even of society. In addition to a wide range of indispensable and provocative concepts for managers, the volume is replete with pure Drucker: the clever, even witty, examples, the staccato rhythm of the prose, the surprising analogies, and the powerful insights that make you catch your breath. It is also a romp, much like conversation with the man himself, in which the discussion ranges from history, philosophy, and art, to economics, political science, sociology, religion, and more. Again, he can leave you breathless from the pace. There is no one like him and if you need an introduction, a reminder, or a short course about his contributions, this book is an ideal solution.

The Essential Drucker has three parts: Management, the Individual, and Society. The first two receive most of the attention; only 46 pages are devoted to Society. Each chapter was a chapter in an earlier book and, despite the span of years, the chapters hang together and make a coherent, progressive whole.

As one reads the opening chapters dealing with Management, the reader cannot help but be struck by how deeply Drucker's view has become the way we understand management and, yet, how far ahead of practice he still is. He recognized the importance of culture to all managers in 1988; he spoke of mission in 1974, he advocated a customer focus from the beginning, he emphasizes "teamwork and team results," he warns that innovation is work, and his recurrent theme, for decades, has been the knowledge worker.

The book is also a tribute to management. Drucker notes that the "emergence of management has converted knowledge from social ornament and luxury into the true capital of any economy" and offers us a number of definitions of management throughout the book, each one adding another layer to our understanding. The fundamental task of management is "to make people capable of joint performance through common goals, common values, the right structure, and the training and development they need to perform and to respond to change." "The essence of management is to make knowledge productive." Similarly, he defines other key concepts: business is "the organization that adds value and creates wealth;" the essence of leadership is performance; the customer defines quality; ...