Page 88 - The Drucker Lectures

Claremont Address [ 69

force have gone to school beyond high school. They have learned
very much. But even more, they have changed expectations.
First, they expect management to be rational. They expect
management to behave the way they have been told management
behaves. Now you and I, particularly the older ones of us in this
group, know that this is sheer delusion. But they expect that
there is a way to make decisions—and it’s more than just say-
ing, “Do this because I tell you so.” That there is some thinking
ahead, that there is some rhyme or reason behind what manage-
ment does. They expect it and, by golly, they’re going to get it.
Because don’t forget: They’re going to survive us. They expect
that what they have learned will be put to use. They expect to
make a contribution and to earn their keep. All the things that
we have preached to them, they have swallowed. That may be
very stupid of them, but young people do believe what parents
and teachers tell them. And we have told them to expect rational-
ity from management. We have told them to expect challenge.
We have told them to expect responsibility. And they expect it.
Above all, we will have to learn to put these tremendous energies
to work. I am frankly not yet seeing any place where this is even
practicable. But I think we owe it to ourselves to do so.
Now, at the same time, we also face a challenge that a good
many of us 25 years ago thought we had licked: the challenge of
productivity.
The world today is threatened by an inflation that nobody can
control and which is probably the worst social poison imaginable.
It dissolves the bond of community and sets class against class.
And in every one of the 30 inflationary periods since the first one,
which was in the sixteenth century, the result has been a revolt of
the middle class against the establishment, to use modern terms.
They feel a bitter betrayal, real bitter; this one is no exception.
And the only answer to it is productivity. When I say produc-
tivity I am not talking productivity of labor alone, I am talking