On PETER DRUCKER

Peter Drucker and Management Karen Linkletter (2024)

Those readers are looking to Drucker to be an orthodox management writer. Drucker was never that. He was, by his own admission, a social observer and a journalist. It is our hope that this text presents Peter Drucker as not merely a social observer but also a social theorist who impacted the world of management. This book is organized into chapters that can be read independently from one another but also present a logical thematic approach to Drucker’s work. Chapter 1 gives the reader an in- depth biographical evaluation of Drucker’s life focusing on his European roots and how that background informed his later work and life.

Chapter 2 lays out Drucker’s social theory in detail, tracing how his concept of a functioning society worked its way into his writings.

Chapter 3 delves into the detail of Drucker’s work on the actual practice of management, as he moved from his theoretical work to his efforts to make management a profession.

Chapter 4 takes up the subject of leadership, a topic of much interest today that Drucker was, frankly, lukewarm to. Drucker came late to the leadership conversation, and this chapter explains why, with some takeaways as to what we might learn from Drucker on this today.

Chapter 5 addresses Drucker’s signature term, the knowledge society, and addresses some of our current concerns with new developments in this area. Chapter 6 takes up Drucker’s work on innovation and entrepreneurship, including his early thinking on that topic before his 1985 book, as well as how we might use his ideas today.

In Chapter 7, we confront the controversial topic of Drucker’s work on government and how he has been misinterpreted by some politically; Drucker was intentionally an apolitical figure, and we hope to show that efforts to recruit him as a political icon are misconstrued. The current topic of technology and society is related to discussion of artificial intelligence and other emerging developments.

Chapter 8 shows that Drucker was a pioneer in thinking about how such advances are part of historical context and larger processes, and thus need to be viewed carefully in terms of threats and potential.

Lastly, Chapter 9 looks at Drucker as he characterized himself: a social ecologist. We begin the book looking at Drucker as a theorist. Social ecology is the way Drucker put his theory into practice, not just for individual organizations but also for society as a whole.

I knew Peter Drucker. He was a brilliant man with whom I had many wonderful conversations, and with whom I laughed and shared personal activities aimed at subverting Hitler’s success. With the Nazi’s eventual victory, Drucker fled first to England and then to the United States. Landing in the United States during the Great Depression, shortly before that country’s entry into World War II, Drucker witnessed the dramatic changes happening in the American economy, as it transformed into an industrial manufacturing powerhouse (first for armament production, and, after the war, for a vast array of consumer goods). By sheer accident of timing and history, Drucker was catapulted from world to world. First, Drucker’s youth in a placid upper- middle- class neighborhood in Vienna, the crown of the Austro- Hungarian Empire, was marred by the upheaval of World War I and its aftermath. As a young man starting an independent life, he was shattered by the rise of the Nazis and the threat to his family, career, and personal safety. Landing in America on the cusp of that country’s entry into World War II, Drucker experienced the subsequent massive economic and cultural shifts and disruptions that the war created in the United States. Given that Drucker experienced all of these discontinuities in his first some 35 years of life, it is not surprising that his work focused on his primary project: how to find a path to a functioning society, and one that would balance change and continuity.

For Drucker, the key to avoid another totalitarian or fascist disaster such as that he witnessed in Europe in the 1930s was to provide people with a society that made sense. When rational explanations for events broke down, people lost all hope and turned to authoritarianism— a strong leader who made promises that, even if they made no sense, would at least offer a way out of misery. The only recompense was to create a society that gave individuals social status and function. Everyone needs to feel that they are important somewhere in society, that they matter and are recognized and valued. They also need to feel that they contribute and have a purpose (a job). Additionally, society needs to be held together by an agreed- upon power that is deemed legitimate. How do we create this functioning society?

In mid- twentieth- century America, as business and other organizations began to become more important than the traditional dominance of government as the primary institution, Drucker was naturally drawn to management as he sought to shore up the institutions of society. If the new institutions of society— first corporations, and later non- profits and other institutions— were well- managed, they could provide individuals with status and function and also represent a legitimate form of authority and power. Ultimately, a pluralistic society of organizations that were well- managed could prevent the rise of totalitarianism and, while not creating an ideal society, at least provide the opportunity for a tolerable one. The fact that Drucker witnessed such incredible change in his life experiences. He was also a complicated person with a history we cannot begin to understand or imagine. I hope that I have captured something of his life and work in these pages.

Ch 1Landing in industrial America by accident of history, Drucker’s search for a 
functioning society of institutions led him to use America as a blueprint for avoiding the 
breakdown of social structures that occurred in Europe. Steeped in a wealth of knowledge in political
philosophy, literature, economics, sociology, and many other disciplines, Drucker’s unique perspective as a European émigré
allowed him to see the world in the context of larger patterns of change and continuity. 
His experience with the massive disruptions of two world wars, economic upheaval, 
and totalitarian government gave Drucker an early education in the need to balance 
change with continuity.

Driven by his experiences in Austria as a teenager and in Germany as a young man, Drucker’s life project was the search for a tolerable society of institutions that would provide meaning to people and prevent a repeat of the history he witnessed. In his interviews and memoir, Drucker told a consistent story of his life and career development, one that emphasizes his role as an observer or bystander in American society. He often used a quotation from Goethe’s Faust to describe himself: “Born to see, meant to look” (Drucker, 1995). By deliberately fashioning himself as a bystander, not a participant, Drucker distanced himself from the very culture he also claimed as his own. Austrian-born and German educated, Drucker, like many other émigrés, was drawn to America because it in so many ways contrasted with Old World Europe. Yet, at the same time, he sought to lose his European identity, to become American, he created his own identity as an outsider rather than an insider. As a self- made bystander, Peter Drucker wrote for himself an identity that placed him between identities; he was neither fully American nor European. Although he retained his Austrian accent, he wrote as an American bystander, taking title to American society and culture. However, as someone who fled Europe around the same time as Hannah Arendt, Ludwig von Mises, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse, Drucker could not help but write from the perspective of an émigré. He crafted an identity that selectively blurred his status as a European immigrant, yet, at the same time, prevented him from complete immersion and assimilation in American life.

Drucker’s bystander identity was useful to him as a means of negotiating the virtual impossibility of complete assimilation. Other fellow émigrés experienced similar difficulties with becoming American, and, like Drucker, constructed outsider identities. Theologian Paul Tillich entitled his autobiography “On the Boundary,” conveying his bystander status along the outskirts of American society. Others, such as Theodore Adorno and Berthold Brecht, established a Tocquevillian stance, as the outsider looking in to critique American culture for its homogeneity and mind- numbing effect (Heilbut, 1983). Drucker, however, used his bystander identity for its practical applications in his role as a consultant; by maintaining his distance from his clients’ organizations, he retained his objectivity. USC management professor Warren Bennis stated that Drucker told him this was one of the secrets of consulting: “be an outsider” (Bennis, 1985, p. 25). But it served another important function as well. It allowed him to find his own place of meaning and status in society, a topic which is of great importance to him, while still protecting his own individuality and uniqueness. As management professor Warren Bennis has commented, “It is not clear where Peter Drucker does belong.” He clearly did not fit into the corporate world; he never worked for one of the large organizations, business or non- profit, that he analyzed. He was never at home in the academic realm, which he himself acknowledged: “…I am not a scholar and I have always had a very large part of my life outside the university.”