BetterBizBookClub

June 2002 BetterBiz "Book of the Month" - The Essential Drucker by Hernando De Soto

Full Length Review Here!

The Essential Drucker
By Peter Drucker
HarperBusiness, 2001 - 386 pages

BUY THE BOOK!  More importantly, read it from front to back and absorb the material. You'll be on your way to a different understanding of business principles and the importance of innovation and entrepreneurial ventures in today's society.

Peter Drucker, the author of the book, is a distinguished professor and has the University of Claremont's business school NAMED after him. He has continuously identified critical principles in management, economics, politics, and the world in general. If most workers and managers read his teachings and practiced them people would have a much better grasp of the business world.

The "Essential Drucker" is the best business book I have come across on the philosophy of management. Drucker clearly illustrates what  makes a corporation effective, what makes managers effective and what makes YOU, the employee or business owner a more effective person. Jack Welch has praised Drucker as one of the best writers of management he has come across. I enjoyed some Drucker articles in business school and read his most recent book Management Challenges for the 21st Century prior to picking this book up. 

This book is very interesting because it covers such a wide array of topics with over 60 years worth of writings by Mr. Drucker. The book is segmented into 3 sections, the individual, management and society. I am thoroughly glad that Mr. Drucker continually focuses on how corporations and managers affect society and how society affect the decisions that managers will need to make as you rarely will find that in a business book.

Drucker understands business better than 99.999% of the folks out there. BUY THE BOOK folks. It truly is great work. I can't say it enough.

If you are looking for another simple and very effective business book try What the CEO Wants You to Know by Ram Charan, a Stanford professor. That book is only 150 pages and very simple to read/understand but the basics are what 9 out of 10 managers fail to execute.

Here are the sources of the chapters from Mr. Drucker's prior works:

The New Realities, Chapters 1 and 26;

Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, Chapters 2, 3, 5, and 18;

Managing for the Future, Chapters 4 and 19;

Management Challenges for the 21st Century, Chapters 6, 15, 21;

Managing in a Time of Great Change, Chapters 7 and 23;

Practice of Management, Chapter 8;

Frontiers of Management, Chapter 9;

Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Chapters 10-12, 20, and 24;

The Effective Executive, Chapters 13, 14, 16, and 17; and

Post-Capitalist Society, Chapters 22 and 25.

Peter F. Drucker was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1909. Educated in Austria and in England, Mr. Drucker holds a doctorate in Public and International Law from Frankfurt University in Germany. He also has received honorary doctorates from American, Belgian, Czech, English, Japanese, Spanish and Swiss universities. Since 1971, Mr. Drucker has been Marie Rankin Clarke Professor of Social Science and Management at Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California, which named its Graduate Management Center after him in 1987.

In addition to teaching, Mr. Drucker currently acts as a consultant, specializing in strategy and policy for both businesses and nonprofits, and in the work and organization of top management. He has worked with many of the world's largest corporations and with small and entrepreneurial companies; with nonprofits such as universities, hospitals and community services; and with agencies of the U.S. Government as well as with Free-World governments such as those of Canada and Japan. In the past, Mr. Drucker has variously been economist for an international bank in London; American economist for a group of British and European banks and investment trusts; and American correspondent for a group of British newspapers.

From 1950 to 1971, Mr. Drucker was Professor of Management at the Graduate Business School of New York University which awarded him the university s highest honor, the Presidential Citation in 1969. From 1979 to 1985, he also served as Professorial Lecturer in Oriental Art at Pomona College, one of the Claremont Colleges. He also acted as Professor of Politics and Philosophy at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont.

A prolific writer on subjects relating to society, economics, politics and management, Mr. Drucker has published 30 books which have been translated into more than twenty languages. In addition to his writings on management and economics, he has written an autobiographical book entitled, Adventures of a Bystander, and co-authored Adventures of the Brush; Japanese Paintings. Mr. Drucker has made several series of educational movies based on his management books, and he was an editorial columnist for the Wall Street Journal from 1975 to 1995, and serves as a frequent contributor to magazines.

On June 21 2001, Dr. Peter Drucker, author of The Effective Executive and Management Challenges for the 21st Century, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President George W. Bush."  Dr. Peter Drucker is the world's foremost pioneer of management theory. Dr. Drucker has championed concepts such as privatization, management by objective and decentralization. He has served as a consultant to numerous governments, public service institutions and major corporations. Dr. Drucker is a Professor of Social Sciences and Management at the Claremont Graduate University in Claremont, California, which named its Graduate School of Management after him. He helped establish and continues to serve as the Honorary Chairman of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management in New York City, which awards the Peter F. Drucker Award for Nonprofit Innovation. He is currently applying his expertise to the management of churches and other faith-based institutions and to the reorganization of universities worldwide.It was established by President Truman in 1945 to recognize civilians for their service during World War II, and it was reinstated by President Kennedy in 1963 to honor distinguished service.