KEVIN ROBERTS

Searching for Peter Drucker

I recently contributed a blog to the Drucker Society Europe, about what I learned and carried with me over the years from Peter Drucker, the man Business Week said “invented management.” As I explained in that article, I’ve been channeling from Drucker for 40 years, ever since I encountered his book The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done (1967) while working at Mary Quant’s fashion house in London. Drucker’s revelations about managerial philosophy became embedded in my own thinking and operating framework.

While Peter Drucker is well-known in certain academic circles and business press, he remains largely unfamiliar to a new generation of managers and business leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs. Peter Drucker’s management philosophy has not dated at all since it was first popularized in the 1960s—in fact, his work is more prescient and relevant today than ever. This is the man who phrased the term “knowledge worker”—and presaged how information would become the world’s greatest currency—in the 1960s.

It’s time to reinsert Drucker’s thoughtful, strategic, and profoundly humane voice into the present conversation about the workplace and executive leadership. I’d like to help by bringing attention to “The Global Peter Drucker Challenge” essay contest for students and professionals from the ages of 18 to 35. The theme of this year’s competition is “Managing Oneself in the Digital Age”; essays are asked to be between 1,500-3,000 words and the submissions deadline is July 15, 2015. Winners will receive free registration to the Global Peter Drucker Forum in Vienna this November (a $2,000 EURO value all-access pass, with a priceless opportunity to hobnob with some of the world’s top executives and business thought leaders) with first-prize winners in two categories also receiving $1,000 EURO prize money and a one-year subscription to the Harvard Business Review.

For the uninitiated, the world of Peter Drucker and his humanistic management philosophy is an inexhaustible treasure trove that awaits discovery.

Image attribute/source: Peter Drucker / buildingpharmabrands.com

Recent Posts

Kevin Roberts

Kevin Roberts is founder of Red Rose Consulting; business leader and educator; author and speaker; adviser on marketing, creative thinking and leadership.

READ MORE

Books on Amazon.com

Previous
Next

Join us. Sign up for our blog.

Receive our regular updates in your in-box.