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A trubute to Peter Drucker

I am a great fan of Peter Drucker. It would be fitting to present my first post, as tribute to him.

I have no realization when I became a convert. But ever since I recall my management interest and education, two names have been prominent. Jack welch and Peter Drucker. I knew Jack Welch was somebody who was incharge of a magnificient company called General Electric. The fascination for Peter Drucker has its own little story. I describe that here.

In the graduation school, I had taken up management courses out of interest for the business and its methods. But once inside, the routine boring, zero value drag had me disenchanted. A year or more so passed, as I tolerated this, just hoping the course would get over, and I would move on to something useful. Thankfully, our library had a small set of good books that covered wider knowledge. But most of the others were routine text books, that were simply copy-paste of some authors. I read them but was never satisfied with the knowledge they provided me. The view was not what I had in mind.

It was at these times I had a lucky break. Being bored of the routine text books, on a boring sunny afternoon I picked up some story books, a light reading material. That book happened to be "The Practice of Mangement" by Peter Drucker. After just a couple of pages I knew this was it. This was the view I was looking for. But still just read only few pages.Being a novice I did not understand the purport of the knowledge gained.

My weakness is I cant tolerate mediocrity. This is a big weakness on my part, sometimes to the point of rudeness and my behavior being unreasonable. During one such slug fest with my friends and teachers, unknowingly I used many concepts I had learned in those few pages of the book. Now, I realised something. I read the whole story. In the book Drucker states Alfred Sloan was a very good manager and that Sloan wrote a book called "My years with General Motors". I must have been the luckiest because this book was of the few books available. I was totally hooked. I finally knew what mangament was. I had found out what I have to do, thanks to Drucker.

There started my fascination with Drucker, continued with countless books and numerous articles. He was one person I would turn to, when some management "guru" came up with new theories. Check out what he has to say, on the subject. By reading his writings, I came to know what the management is and how it should be. Peter Drucker was the key who opened the door, where I could find my view of management. He was the one who kick started my journey and sustained it through the intial tough and blinding periods. Naturally, so different from the routine textbooks, nevertheless a view I knew, had intrinsic worth more than anything else.

Many call him Father of the Modern Management. To me he has been a good guide. An anchor I can bank on.

There are still huge number of books and articles I have to catch up on. The journey continues, one that started on that sunny afternoon to the limitless horizon.


:-) Falkor

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