Joe’s Journal: On Tyranny and the Organization

Here is the latest post by Joseph A. Maciariello featured in the Joe’s Journal series at the Drucker Exchange (Dx) sponsored by the Drucker Institute. The Dx is a platform for bettering society through effective management and responsible leadership. It is produced by the Drucker Institute, a think tank and action tank based at Claremont Graduate University that was established to advance the ideas and ideals of Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern management. To check out a wealth of resources and subscribe to its online newsletter, please click here.

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Man in his social and political existence must have a functioning society just as he must have air to breathe in his biological existence. However, the fact that man has to have a society does not necessarily mean that he has it. Nobody calls the mass of unorganized, panicky, stampeding humanity in a shipwreck a ‘society.’ There is no society, though there are human beings in a group. Actually, the panic is directly due to the breakdown of a society; and the only way to overcome it is by restoring a society with social values, social discipline, social power and social relationships. Social life cannot function without a society; but it is conceivable that it does not function at all. The evidence of the last 25 years of Western civilization hardly entitles us to say that our social life functioned so well as to make out a prima-facie case for the existence of a functioning society.” – Peter F. Drucker

This passage, from Drucker’s 1942 book The Future of Industrial Man, was published in the midst of World War II. It is looking back to a period when the institutions of society had broken down, making way for totalitarian governments in Germany, Russia and Italy. The cry from the people was for security and relief from chaotic economic conditions that included the twin evils of unemployment and inflation. The dictators promised security, and the people accepted totalitarianism as a price for that promise. But Drucker did not believe totalitarianism was the answer to the dysfunctions. Rather, he saw the answers in strong, functioning institutions led by executives with integrity.

He made this case later, in the preface to the hardcover edition of his 1973 book Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices: “If the institutions of our pluralistic society of institutions do not perform in responsible autonomy, we will not have individualism and a society in which there is a chance for people to fulfill themselves. We will instead impose on ourselves complete regimentation in which no one will be allowed autonomy… Tyranny is the only alternative to strong, performing autonomous institutions…It substitutes terror for responsibility.”

Sometime later, I noticed that this passage was dropped from the paperback edition of the book. At a dinner party for a visiting professor from Tel Aviv, I asked Drucker if he still believed in what he’d written. He said yes, and surprised me by adding that the passage was edited out of the new edition to shorten the book some. What an incredible edit! The heart of Peter Drucker’s book was taken out!

Then on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. That evening, our faculty met at a social gathering. Remembering that Drucker predicted the fall of Communism in his book The New Realities, which was released earlier that year, I asked him as he was coming up the stairs with his cane, “Peter, what do you think about the Wall?” He smiled broadly. “I knew it was going to happen,” he said. “I just did not know it was going to happen so fast.” May each of us learn these lessons and accept responsibility to keep our organizations, and our people within them, free and performing. – Joe Maciariello

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Joseph A. Maciariello is the Horton Professor of Management & Director of Research and Education, The Drucker Institute. You can contact him directly at joseph.maciariello@cgu.edu.

Joe’s Journal: On Tyranny and the Organization

Here is the latest post by Joseph A. Maciariello featured in the Joe’s Journal series at the Drucker Exchange (Dx) sponsored by the Drucker Institute. The Dx is a platform for bettering society through effective management and responsible leadership. It is produced by the Drucker Institute, a think tank and action tank based at Claremont Graduate University that was established to advance the ideas and ideals of Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern management.

To check out a wealth of resources and subscribe to its online newsletter, please click here.

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“Man in his social and political existence must have a functioning society just as he must have air to breathe in his biological existence. However, the fact that man has to have a society does not necessarily mean that he has it. Nobody calls the mass of unorganized, panicky, stampeding humanity in a shipwreck a ‘society.’ There is no society, though there are human beings in a group. Actually, the panic is directly due to the breakdown of a society; and the only way to overcome it is by restoring a society with social values, social discipline, social power and social relationships.

“Social life cannot function without a society; but it is conceivable that it does not function at all. The evidence of the last 25 years of Western civilization hardly entitles us to say that our social life functioned so well as to make out a prima-facie case for the existence of a functioning society.”   – Peter F. Drucker

This passage, from Drucker’s 1942 book The Future of Industrial Man, was published in the midst of World War II. It is looking back to a period when the institutions of society had broken down, making way for totalitarian governments in Germany, Russia and Italy.

The cry from the people was for security and relief from chaotic economic conditions that included the twin evils of unemployment and inflation. The dictators promised security, and the people accepted totalitarianism as a price for that promise. But Drucker did not believe totalitarianism was the answer to the dysfunctions. Rather, he saw the answers in strong, functioning institutions led by executives with integrity.

He made this case later, in the preface to the hardcover edition of his 1973 book Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices: “If the institutions of our pluralistic society of institutions do not perform in responsible autonomy, we will not have individualism and a society in which there is a chance for people to fulfill themselves. We will instead impose on ourselves complete regimentation in which no one will be allowed autonomy… Tyranny is the only alternative to strong, performing autonomous institutions…It substitutes terror for responsibility.”

Sometime later, I noticed that this passage was dropped from the paperback edition of the book. At a dinner party for a visiting professor from Tel Aviv, I asked Drucker if he still believed in what he’d written. He said yes, and surprised me by adding that the passage was edited out of the new edition to shorten the book some. What an incredible edit! The heart of Peter Drucker’s book was taken out!

Then on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. That evening, our faculty met at a social gathering. Remembering that Drucker predicted the fall of Communism in his book The New Realities, which was released earlier that year, I asked him as he was coming up the stairs with his cane, “Peter, what do you think about the Wall?” He smiled broadly. “I knew it was going to happen,” he said. “I just did not know it was going to happen so fast.”

May each of us learn these lessons and accept responsibility to keep our organizations, and our people within them, free and performing.

– Joe Maciariello

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Joseph A. Maciariello is the Horton Professor of Management & Director of Research and Education, The Drucker Institute. You can contact him directly at joseph.maciariello@cgu.edu.

Joe’s Journal: On the Right Kind of Control

Here is the latest post by Joseph A. Maciariello featured in the Joe’s Journal series at the Drucker Exchange (Dx) sponsored by the Drucker Institute. The Dx is a platform for bettering society through effective management and responsible leadership. It is produced by the Drucker Institute, a think tank and action tank based at Claremont Graduate University that was established to advance the ideas and ideals of Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern management.

To check out a wealth of resources and subscribe to its online newsletter, please click here.

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“The greatest advantage of Management by Objectives is perhaps that it makes it possible for a manager to control his own performance. Self-control means stronger motivation: a desire to do the best rather than just enough to get by. It means higher performance goals and broader vision. Even if Management by Objectives were not necessary to give the enterprise the unity of direction and effort of a management team, it would be necessary to make possible management by self-control.

‘Control’ means the ability to direct oneself and one’s work. It can also mean domination of one person by another. Objectives are the basis of ‘control’ in the first sense; but they must never become the basis of ‘control’ in the second, for this would defeat their purpose.”

– Peter F. Drucker

Peter Drucker often warned his readers about “writing off” a subject because he or she did not particularly like it. His concern was that intellectual arrogance may cause us problems in life when we really do need information from the subject area that we have written off. Such is the case with the subject of “control” or “managerial control.”

As Drucker states, “management by domination” is to be avoided. And one of the definitions of control is “domination.” We must try to avoid dominating anyone in our organizations by the use of controls. Yet “control” in the sense of meeting objectives is virtuous and of critical importance, especially now.

At about the turn of the century, the emphasis in the management literature shifted decisively from “managerial control” to “empowerment,” and that was for good reason: The trend toward empowerment is consistent with a knowledge society in which workers are equipped to carry out their responsibilities using self-control. Yet the entire field of “Management Control Systems” has become anathema to academics in this age of empowerment.  I advise you not to buy into this intellectual arrogance.

Strong controllers are needed today more than ever. Budgets of nations all over the Western world are “out of control,” and we are paying a big price for it in economic, social and political instability. Strong controllers could help this nation close the budget gaps we are experiencing at all levels of government.

Budgets of federal, state and municipal governments should be scrutinized in detail. And the word “control,” a seven-letter word, should not be treated as a four-letter word. Constructive controls are healthy for each of us and for our governments.  Beware intellectual arrogance!

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Joseph A. Maciariello is the Horton Professor of Management & Director of Research and Education, The Drucker Institute. You can contact him directly at joseph.maciariello@cgu.edu.

Joe’s Journal: On Realists vs. Cynics

Here is the latest post by Joseph A. Maciariello featured in the Joe’s Journal series at the Drucker Exchange (Dx) sponsored by the Drucker Institute. The Drucker Exchange (the Dx) is a platform for bettering society through effective management and responsible leadership. It is produced by the Drucker Institute, a think tank and action tank based at Claremont Graduate University that was established to advance the ideas and ideals of Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern management.

To check out a wealth of resources and subscribe to its online newsletter, please click here.

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“Integrity may be difficult to define, but what constitutes lack of integrity is of such seriousness as to disqualify a person for a managerial position. A person should never be appointed to a managerial position if his vision focuses on people’s weaknesses rather than on their strengths. The person who always knows exactly what people cannot do, but never sees anything they can do, will undermine the spirit of her organization. An executive should be a realist; and no one is less realistic than the cynic.

A person should not be appointed if that person is more interested in the question ‘Who is right?’ than in the question ‘What is right?’ Management . . . should never promote a person who has shown that he or she is afraid of strong subordinates. It should never put into a management job a person who does not set high standards for his or her own work.”

–Peter F. Drucker

This reminds me of Peter Drucker’s foreword to Bob Greenleaf’s book Servant Leadership. Drucker said in that piece that he and Greenleaf shared the same basic beliefs and values, but they went about their work very differently. Bob was always out to change the individual, to make him or her into a different person. Greenleaf was a moralist, Drucker said. But Drucker was a pragmatist; he was interested in consequences and actions. He was more concerned with behavior and practices and not so interested in ideas of “good” and “bad.”

Of course, the world needs both types of people. It needs a Socrates, and Bob was truly a wise man. Drucker was more like the Sophists. He said, “I only know that I’m not as effective a preacher as I am a teacher, and the two are very different.”

Integrity is difficult to define. For Drucker, integrity had moral roots, but he was less concerned with the moral roots and more concerned with actions. He was concerned with what happens to people in their everyday lives, in the workplace and so on.

In this passage he discusses some practices that help to create the best opportunities for effective leadership and work. This is really interesting to me. He said that management should appoint people who have high standards for their own work because they serve as examples; their personal characteristics and their work ethic guide others’ choices.

He went on to say that an executive should be a realist, but that it is different than being a cynic. When you’re cynical about people, you are cynical about what they can do and what they can be—and you’re cynical about the kind of practices you can expect of them.

Drucker essentially suggested that the real mark of integrity is how people behave when faced with pressure or temptation. I actually think the formation of character is a lifelong process. Drucker came to think so, too.

– Joe Maciariello

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Joseph A. Maciariello is the Horton Professor of Management & Director of Research and Education, The Drucker Institute. You can contact him directly at joseph.maciariello@cgu.edu.
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Joe’s Journal: On Success and Creative Destruction

Here is the latest post by Joseph A. Maciariello featured in the Joe’s Journal series at the Drucker Exchange (Dx) sponsored by the Drucker Institute. The Drucker Exchange (the Dx) is a platform for bettering society through effective management and responsible leadership. It is produced by the Drucker Institute, a think tank and action tank based at Claremont Graduate University that was established to advance the ideas and ideals of Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern management.

To check out a wealth of resources and subscribe to its online newsletter, please click here.

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“Success always obsoletes the very behavior that achieved it. It always creates new realities. It always creates, above all, its own and different problems. It is not easy for the management of a successful company to ask, ‘What is our business?’ Everybody in the company thinks that the answer is so obvious as not to deserve discussion. It is never popular to argue with success, never popular to rock the boat. But the management that does not ask ‘What is our business?’ when the company is successful is, in effect, smug, lazy and arrogant. It will not be long before success will turn into failure.”

–Peter F. Drucker

The economist Joseph Schumpeter, a friend of the Drucker family, was also one of the most significant intellectual influences on the work of Peter Drucker. Schumpeter identified the process of “creative destruction” in market capitalism, a process that is triggered by entrepreneurial activity, which is itself essential for economic development.

Innovation tends to make obsolete the comparative advantages enjoyed by leading organizations, thus causing disruptions to companies and economies. It is hard to predict where the disruption will come from because it can come from inside or outside a specific industry. The products of organizations, therefore, tend to go through life cycles of growth, stagnation and decline represented by an “S” curve.

To survive and prosper, an organization should anticipate this process not only by abandoning unproductive products, processes and services but by rethinking its business when it is near the top of the “S” curve. At that point it has excess resources and can take the “hit” to earnings required to invest in new ventures. The company should ask, “What should our business be?” before the competition forces the company to take a defensive position.

In practice, it is hard to believe we have a problem when all is going well. But, the stubborn facts of competitive life tell us that problems are likely to be right around the corner. We should take preemptive action and innovate, even going so far as to “cannibalize” our successful products and services. For if we do not do this, our competitors will.

Joe Maciariello

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Joseph A. Maciariello is the Horton Professor of Management & Director of Research and Education, The Drucker Institute. You can contact him directly at joseph.maciariello@cgu.edu.

Joe’s Journal: On Turning Failure to Success

Here is the latest post by Joseph A. Maciariello featured in the Joe’s Journal series at the Drucker Exchange (Dx) sponsored by the Drucker Institute. The Drucker Exchange (the Dx) is a platform for bettering society through effective management and responsible leadership. It is produced by the Drucker Institute, a think tank and action tank based at Claremont Graduate University that was established to advance the ideas and ideals of Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern management.

To check out a wealth of resources and subscribe to its online newsletter, please click here.

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“Knowledge workers . . . need to develop, preferably while they are still quite young, a noncompetitive life and community of their own, and some serious outside interest. This outside interest will give them the opportunity for personal contribution and achievement beyond the workplace. No one can expect to live very long without experiencing a serious setback in one’s life or in one’s work. There is the competent engineer who at age 42 is being passed over for promotion in the company. The engineer now knows that he has not been very successful in his job. But in his outside activity — for example, as treasurer in his local church — he has achieved success and continues to have success. And, one’s own family may break up, but in that outside activity, there is still a community.”

– Peter F. Drucker

As knowledge workers we are bound to experience failure and serious failure at times. What matters in times of failure is our resolve to pursue, and ultimately accomplish, our mission in life and work. I know of no top executive who experienced more failures in his life than our 16th president, Abraham Lincoln, both in office and prior to it.

His failures were especially pronounced in choosing his top generals during the Civil War. Following each battle that the Union lost, Lincoln, after suffering depression, went right to work to try to figure out what had gone wrong. While there were always underlying causes, he could not turn around the course of the war permanently until he found and tested Ulysses S. Grant, whom he ultimately promoted to lieutenant general and put in charge of Union Armies. Before then, the list of his failures in choosing generals was massive: Winfred Scott, George Halleck, Irvin McDowell, George McClellan twice, John Polk, Ambrose Burnside and Joseph Hooker.

Some of these failures simply reflected the superiority of the legendary generals of the Confederacy, including Robert E. Lee. But most failures were failures of strategy and tactics, which ultimately Lincoln had to devise himself and then find generals to successfully implement. Grant became known as “Unconditional Surrender Grant” because of his relentless pursuit of Confederate troops. Grant’s victories came with a tremendous loss of life on both sides, but this was a conflict so deep that it had to be “tried by war” and “decided by victory.” War, as Lincoln found out, is hell. Tragically, there did not seem to be any other way.

President Lincoln, known for his supreme magnanimity, had to join these instincts with discerning judgment that saved him from becoming sentimental. He provides us as knowledge workers with a tremendous lesson — what Peter Drucker called “feedback analysis”: Failure should be followed up by brutal self-evaluation and used as a steppingstone to success.

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Joe Macieriello

Joseph A. Maciariello is the Horton Professor of Management & Director of Research and Education, The Drucker Institute. You can contact him directly at joseph.maciariello@cgu.edu.

 

Joe’s Journal: On Work and Human Nature

Here is the latest post by Joseph A. Maciariello featured in the Joe’s Journal series at the Drucker Exchange (Dx) sponsored by the Drucker Institute. The Drucker Exchange (the Dx) is a platform for bettering society through effective management and responsible leadership. It is produced by the Drucker Institute, a think tank and action tank based at Claremont Graduate University that was established to advance the ideas and ideals of Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern management.

To check out a wealth of resources and subscribe to its online newsletter, please click here.

“Management always lives, works, and practices in and for an institution, which is a human community held together by a bond: the work bond. And precisely because the object of management is a human community held together by the work bond for a common purpose, management always deals with the nature of Man and (as all of us with any practical experience have learned) with Good and Evil, as well. I have learned more theology as a practicing management consultant than when I taught religion.”

– Peter F. Drucker

At a social event for students in Claremont, Peter Drucker once asked me what I was working on. I told him, “Work and Human Nature,” and to my surprise it seemed to stun him. Drucker had the tendency to promote the work of other faculty members. So, it was it was not unusual for him to ask. But his response to my answer seemed to strike something very deep in his life. Little did I know just how deep it was.

As I later learned, Peter Drucker told his friend Bob Buford at Estes Park, Colo., in the summer of 1993 that “What we have now is not an economic problem but an existential problem.” What did he mean? Czeslaw Milosz, one of Drucker’s contemporaries and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1980,sheds light on what Drucker might have had in mind with this comment about our “existential problem.” I quote from his Nobel Lecture as he struggles with the fascist ideas of his youth in Lithuania and Poland, where people were treated as “objects of dominion” rather than as beings created with dignity who yearn to be nourished:

“And yet perhaps our most precious acquisition is not an understanding of those ideas, which we touched in their most tangible shape, but respect and gratitude for certain things which protect people from internal disintegration and from yielding to tyranny. Precisely for that reason some ways of life, some institutions became a target for the fury of evil forces, above all, the bonds between people that exist organically, as if by themselves, sustained by family, religion, neighborhood, common heritage.”

Drucker’s discouragement with the breakdown of community within business organizations, and the ineffectiveness of government in delivering on its promises, led him to place more faith in social sector institutions where personhood could be realized. He was looking forward not only to the Post-Capitalist Society but to the Post-Business Society. As our attention is focused on America’s current economic problems, it might be useful to reflect on our existential needs for personhood and try to re-capture what we have lost as a society. The opportunities presented by this crisis should not be discounted.

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Joseph A. Maciariello is the Horton Professor of Management & Director of Research and Education, The Drucker Institute. You can contact him directly at joseph.maciariello@cgu.edu.

 

 

Joe’s Journal: On Opportunity and Post-it Notes

Here is the latest post by Joseph A. Maciariello featured in the Joe’s Journal series at the Drucker Exchange (Dx) sponsored by the Drucker Institute. The Drucker Exchange (the Dx) is a platform for bettering society through effective management and responsible leadership. It is produced by the Drucker Institute, a think tank and action tank based at Claremont Graduate University that was established to advance the ideas and ideals of Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern management.

To check out a wealth of resources and subscribe to its online newsletter, please click here.

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“When a new venture does succeed, more often than not it is in a market other than the one it was originally intended to serve, with products or services not quite those with which it had set out, bought in large part by customers it did not even think of when it started, and used for a host of purposes besides the ones for which the products were first designed. If a new venture does not anticipate this, organizing itself to take advantage of the unexpected and unseen markets; if it is not totally market-focused, if not market-driven, then it will succeed only in creating an opportunity for a competitor.” – Peter F. Drucker

Peter Drucker thought the unexpected event, success or failure, was one of the most important sources of innovation. I love the story behind the development by 3M of Post-it notes. We discuss it in our book Drucker’s Lost Art of Management: Peter Drucker’s Timeless Vision for Building Effective Organizations, published by McGraw-Hill (2011), because of its power to illustrate one of Drucker’s most important sources of innovation. He urges us to systematically look for opportunities in unexpected successes and failures.

In 1970 Spencer Silver, a 3M researcher, was trying to invent a strong adhesive product but found that the one he had been working on was too weak for its intended use.Meanwhile, in 1974, his associate, Arthur Fry, was trying to keep his place in his hymnal at church and the pieces of paper he used as placeholders for various hymns were always falling out leading to frustration and time waste. So, he remembered his colleague Silver’s failed attempt to develop a strong adhesive and was able to retrieve some of the material and try it out in his hymnal. While it was too weak for Silver’s use, it was perfect for Fry’s. He could insert it and pull it off a page and then re-insert it on another page. Wondering if he had a successful product, Fry received permission to carry out a low-cost probe within 3M, and then he sent it to the CEO of the company. Then it went to major CEOs around the country as part of a market research effort. When the results came back positive, 3M launched the Post-it note commercially.

Now there are Post-it note dispensers, tabs, flags, highlighters, etc. The Post-it note became one of the most successful office product lines in business history. All this from an unexpected failure! Here is Drucker’s advice that I have found useful: Read The Wall Street Journal or The Economist from cover to cover (easier now to do online). If you find your nose “twitching” over something you did not expect, make note of it [on a Post-it?] and follow it up from time to time. [Isaac Asimov once observed, “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not ‘Eureka’ but ‘That's funny’...”] You may have discovered a potential innovation from the unexpected news event. The early blogs on The Daily Drucker were frequently from investors looking for investment opportunities. No one had targeted investors with that book, but it was a heck of an idea. An unexpected market. If you try to innovate and fail, think of other markets for your products or services. You may be surprised. Good luck!

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Joseph A. Maciariello is the Horton Professor of Management & Director of Research and Education, The Drucker Institute. You can contact him directly at joseph.maciariello@cgu.edu.

Joe’s Journal: On Paying Attention to Demographics

Here is the latest post by Joseph A. Maciariello featured in the Joe’s Journal series at the Drucker Exchange (Dx) sponsored by the Drucker Institute. The Drucker Exchange (the Dx) is a platform for bettering society through effective management and responsible leadership. It is produced by the Drucker Institute, a think tank and action tank based at Claremont Graduate University that was established to advance the ideas and ideals of Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern management.

To check out a wealth of resources and subscribe to its online newsletter, please click here.

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“Of all external changes, demographics — defined as changes in population, its size, age structure, composition, employment, educational status, and income — are the clearest. They are unambiguous. They have the most predictable consequences. They have a major impact on what will be bought, by whom, and in what quantities.

Statistics are only the starting point. For those genuinely willing to go out into the field, to look and to listen, changing demographics is both a highly productive and a highly dependable innovative opportunity.” – Peter F. Drucker

Demography, the study of human population and its makeup, was second nature to Peter Drucker. He relied heavily upon demographic information in his work as a Social Ecologist. And we would be wise to follow his example. He believed that the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, or the GI Bill of Rights, passed during the Roosevelt administration, would ultimately create the knowledge worker and the knowledge society. By the time that provisions of the original bill expired in 1956, approximately 7.8 million of the 16 million World War II veterans had taken advantage of educational and training opportunities offered by the GI Bill. At one time, GI’s comprised nearly 50% of undergraduate enrollments in US colleges and universities.

With this tremendous growth in supply of educated talent it was only a matter of time before demand appeared for services of “white collar workers.” Knowledge was applied to work and to the management of work on a massive scale, which led to an increase in productivity and wealth. The growth in disposable income led to purchases of durable goods and to new housing to accommodate rapid family formation that accompanied the baby boom at end of World War II. Of course, 18 years or so later there would be a tremendous growth in the number of college students from the baby boom group of the late 1940s and early 1950s. All these things were quite predictable; one only had to look and track changes in trends. Drucker applied demography to the aging of the population in 1976 and was therefore able to comfortably predict the pressures that were going to develop on Social Security and Medicare once children of the baby boom generation reached age 65. Of course this is happening right now, but policy makers did nothing about it. Rather, politicians from both parties decided to “kick the ball down the road,” thus contributing to the fiscal mess that our country now finds itself in. Those who pay attention to demographic data can use it to their benefit. Those who choose to ignore these data do so at the risk of posterity. May this crisis cause the people of the United States to rise up and elect people from both parties that see demographic trends clearly and have the courage to act upon them in time to prevent “knee-jerk reactions.”

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Joseph A. Maciariello is the Horton Professor of Management & Director of Research and Education, The Drucker Institute. You can contact him directly at joseph.maciariello@cgu.edu.

 

Joe’s Journal: On Managing Oneself

Here is the latest post by Joseph A. Maciariello featured in the Joe’s Journal series at the Drucker Exchange (Dx) sponsored by the Drucker Institute. The Drucker Exchange (the Dx) is a platform for bettering society through effective management and responsible leadership. It is produced by the Drucker Institute, a think tank and action tank based at Claremont Graduate University that was established to advance the ideas and ideals of Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern management.

To check out a wealth of resources and subscribe to its online newsletter, please click here.

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“Managing oneself is a REVOLUTION in human affairs.

The shift from manual workers who do as they are being told — either by the task or by the boss — to knowledge workers who have to manage themselves profoundly challenges social structure. For every existing society, even the most ‘individualist’ one, takes two things for granted, if only subconsciously: Organizations outlive workers, and most people stay put. Managing oneself is based on the very opposite realities.” – Peter F. Drucker

As knowledge workers we must take responsibility for our own growth and development. This requires that we know our strengths and values. It is not surprising to find Tom Rath’s 2007 book, Strengthfinders 2.0, is No. 1 this week on The Wall Street Journal bestselling list of business books. It follows a line of books on this topic that have sold extremely well. Bernard Haldane’s ideas in the 1940s started us off; then followed What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Bolles. Don’t laugh! It is in its 11th edition and has sold over 8 million copies. Peter Drucker has also emphasized strengths for years, especially in The Effective Executive, one of the most influential management books of all time.

“Don’t buck the market” is a saying on Wall Street, and I believe there is truth here; the subject of self-management is more than a fad or a bubble. All of us have strengths even if they were developed out of extreme weakness—for example, those who are likely to be the most compassionate in an area such as alcohol abuse are often reformed alcoholics themselves. And some of the best doctors I know have been severely ill at one or more points in their life. We are all endowed with gifts and they do change over time; the idea is to seek them out and then develop them with all our might. That is where we are likely to be happiest. Of course, we may have strengths in an area for which we have no supporting values. In that case, we are faced with a choice—to do well in the eyes of family and friends or to please our inner self. What helps here is our mortality. We can’t take anything with us, so we might as well do what we are passionate about and hope that it pays the bills. If not, we can try to do it as a second career. I know that lurking inside of me is a great tenor, but I am the only one who knows (not good).

Then comes the Drucker question, “What do I want to be remembered for?” Making another million? Or helping others? It’s up to us. These are heavy responsibilities, and in the face of tough times we may not have much choice. The trick is to be prepared and wait for the right opportunity.

Finally, do not underestimate how difficult it is for people who want to move from success to significance once they have enough money to do so. The right opportunity may require you to obtain some mentoring. So, if you are in this position, look for an experienced mentor. Best wishes.

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Those who are obsessed with the latest lists of this week’s or this month’s bestselling business books would be well-advised to assign much greater value to the lists of bestselling business books during the last five or ten years. As Joe Maciariello points out, Tom Rath’s book was first published by Gallup Press in 2007.

Joseph A. Maciariello is the Horton Professor of Management & Director of Research and Education, The Drucker Institute. You can contact him directly at joseph.maciariello@cgu.edu.