Business Management: The Real OGs
Drucker and Deming — Comparing These Old Gurus
W. Edwards Deming was born in Sioux City, Iowa in 1900. Peter Drucker arrived nearly a decade later, born in 1909 in Vienna, Austria. Both men spent their early years in academia. Drucker was educated in Germany where he spent many years aggravating the Nazis before immigrating to New York. Deming would spend the war years attempting to perfect and standardize the American industrial machine. These two backgrounds would define them; Drucker, the idea man, with his top down theories and Deming, the pragmatist, with his bottoms up views.
With the end of World War II, each man would emerge in the new age of management and measurement. Neither was exactly young in the late 40’s, but each would contribute to business thinking and development for the next 50 years!
Post War Comparisons
Drucker would start his post-war emergence at General Motors. He would spend years analyzing the corporation and consulting for Fortune 500 companies like Sears, IBM, and GE. He believed business was a liberal art and drew from other disciplines like history, philosophy,and religion. He coined the phrase “knowledge worker”, predicted the end of the blue collar worker, and believe that all businesses existed to “serve their customers”.
Deming would spend the post-war period in Japan. He was requested by General MacArthur and would spend two decades instructing with the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers. He taught quality control and productivity, drawing heavily from statistics, science, and analysis. He developed a system for “profound knowledge” and “believed innovation came from the producer, not the customer”.
Their philosophies at first pass feel leagues apart. Varying experiences and background gave each man a very different perspective on the new age of corporations and industry. Drucker was looking down and forward, focused on innovation and change. Deming was looking up and present, focused on measurement and control. But, in fact, their models were quite similar, only their perspective was different.
Knowledge
As the 1980 began, each man had already gained the title of business guru. They were in high demand among the business world and even popular in the media. Each was an advocate of knowledge and worker empowerment. Each advocated for organizational alignment and process. Each believed strongly in efficiency and the abilities of people.
Of course they had different perspectives on this as well. Drucker emphasized the value of people and the role management played in undermining their success. Deming emphasized the value of process and the failure of management that too often blamed the people. Drucker felt many corporations attempted to do too much. Deming believed corporations often tried to control too much. Subtle as this may seem, it often put their recommendations and priorities at odds.
Legacy
Both men had long lives and long careers. Deming died at 93. The younger Drucker would live to 95, giving him an opportunity to weigh in on the internet age and prospect for the new millennium. Their philosophies of management are still studied and utilized today. Each was a prolific author with works published even after their deaths. They were the fathers of management theory and influenced much of what is now the modern workplace. They were the real OG’s of business, if only corporations had listened just a little more…
For more on Peter Drucker consider:
For more on W. Edwards Deming consider:
