Page 232 - The Drucker Lectures

PART VII

2000s

n 2002, Peter Drucker was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
Ithe nation’s highest civilian honor. At the White House ceremony, he was
hailed as “the world’s foremost pioneer of management theory.” And given
his impact in numerous areas of the field—marketing, innovation, leader-
ship, decentralization, employee relations, and so much more—who could
argue with that characterization? But, in a sense, such praise was far
too narrow. Drucker described himself as a “social ecologist”—someone,
in his words, “concerned with man’s man-made environment the way the
natural ecologist studies the biological environment.” With that in mind, it
is best to think of Drucker more in the mold of an Alexis de Tocqueville than
a Frederick Taylor. Toward the end of his long career, Drucker was asked
to name his most significant contributions. Without any false modesty, he
answered: “That I early on—almost 60 years ago—realized that manage-
ment has become the constitutive organ and function of the Society of
Organizations; that management is not ‘Business Management’ . . . but the
governing organ of all institutions of Modern Society; that I established the
study of management as a discipline in its own right; and that I focused
this discipline on People and Power; on Values, Structure and Constitution;
and above all on responsibilities—that is, focused the Discipline of Man-
agement on Management as a truly liberal art.” About six months before he
died, at the age of 95, Drucker was more demure in assessing his legacy.
“What I would say,” he told a reporter, “is I helped a few good people be
effective in doing the right things.” Then he added, “Look, I’m totally unin-
teresting. I’m a writer, and writers don’t have interesting lives.” Which just
goes to prove: Even Drucker got it wrong on occasion.

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