What I learned from Peter Drucker

In January 2017 I was invited to participate in a doctoral seminar of the HHL and the university of Eichstätt on Peter Drucker. I learned only after my acceptance that I was supposed to give a talk on Peter Drucker as well. This was a challenge as Timo Meynhardt, one of the organizing professors of the seminar, overestimated my knowledge of Peter Drucker’s work: Up to that point I had mostly read Drucker’s classical books on management. Timo was kind enough to recommend reading „A Functioning Society“. It is a selection of Peter Drucker’s writings on community, society, and politics collected by Drucker himself. I am grateful that I was „forced“ to get to know Peter Drucker’s thinking in more depth. There are many insights that serve us well as orientation in turbulent times.

I turned the talk I gave into a series of blog posts. There are four chapters:

• The obvious: Peter Drucker’s timeless truths on management. This is the thinking that already grew dear to my heart over my management career.
• The belief: Peter Drucker’s call for personal contribution to society. This is the root for his clarity and authority. Peter Drucker had convictions that defined and shaped his whole thinking and made him so powerful.
• The prophecy: Peter Drucker was a witness of injustice and suffering in the middle of the 20th century. He searched for a better world. His thinking was ahead of times and covered long term developments as well as social changes that occupy us to this day.
• The base: His thinking was firmly based in Christian faith. I find that difficult as a footing. Not only is it too much European centered, but doesn’t hold up to new insights about (cognitive) science. I will argue that all of his passion and modern insights can be integrated in a humanistic view that doesn’t need Christian faith.

Originally published at timmrichter.de on March 26, 2017.