Peter Drucker facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Peter Drucker
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| Born |
Peter Ferdinand Drucker
November 19, 1909 |
| Died | November 11, 2005 (aged 95) |
| Alma mater | Goethe University Frankfurt (PhD) |
| Occupation | Management consultant, educator and author |
| Awards | Henry Laurence Gantt Medal (1959) Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class (1991) Presidential Medal of Freedom (2002) |
Peter Ferdinand Drucker (born November 19, 1909 – died November 11, 2005) was an important thinker from Austria and America. He was a management consultant, a teacher, and an author. His ideas helped shape how modern businesses work.
Drucker is often called the "founder of modern management." He came up with ideas like "management by objectives" and "self-control." He also helped create the field of management education.
His books and articles looked at how people are organized in businesses, governments, and nonprofit groups. He was one of the most famous and influential thinkers about how to manage things. He even predicted many big changes that happened in the late 1900s. These included companies becoming private, the rise of Japan's economy, and the importance of marketing. He also saw the start of the information age, where learning new things all the time is key.
In 1959, Drucker created the term "knowledge worker." This means someone who works with their mind, not just their hands. Later in his life, he thought that helping knowledge workers be productive was the next big challenge for management.
Contents
Peter Drucker's Life Story
Drucker grew up in Austria-Hungary in a family that was open to new ideas. His parents were both from Jewish families. His mother, Caroline Bondi, studied medicine. His father, Adolf Drucker, was a lawyer and a high-ranking government official.
Peter was born in Vienna, Austria. Their home was a place where smart people, government leaders, and scientists would meet. They talked about many new and exciting ideas.
After finishing school in 1927, Drucker found it hard to get a job in Vienna after World War I. So, he moved to Hamburg, Germany. He first worked at a cotton trading company. Then, he became a journalist for a newspaper called Der Österreichische Volkswirt.
Drucker later moved to Frankfurt, where he worked for another newspaper. While in Frankfurt, he also earned a special degree in international law in 1931. This was from the Goethe University Frankfurt.
Moving to New Places
In 1933, Drucker left Germany and moved to England. In London, he worked for an insurance company. After that, he became the main economist at a private bank.
He also met Doris Schmitz again, who he knew from university. They got married in 1934. The couple then moved permanently to the United States. There, Peter became a university professor. He also worked as a writer and a business consultant.
In 1943, Drucker became a citizen of the United States. He had a great career as a teacher. He taught politics and philosophy at Bennington College from 1942 to 1949. Then, he taught management at New York University for 22 years, from 1950 to 1971.
Later Years and Legacy
In 1971, Drucker moved to California. There, he helped create one of the first MBA programs for working adults. This was at Claremont Graduate University. He taught there until he passed away.
The management school at Claremont Graduate University was named the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management in his honor in 1987. He taught his last class in 2002 when he was 92 years old. He kept advising businesses and nonprofit groups even when he was in his nineties.
Peter Drucker died on November 11, 2005, in Claremont, California, at the age of 95. He had four children. His wife, Doris, passed away in 2014 when she was 103.
Peter Drucker's Ideas
Early Influences on His Thinking
One of Drucker's early influences was Joseph Schumpeter, an economist and a friend of his father. Schumpeter taught Drucker how important new ideas and starting new businesses (entrepreneurship) are.
Drucker was also influenced by John Maynard Keynes, another famous economist. Drucker once said that Keynes and his students were interested in how goods behave. But Drucker was more interested in how people behave.
For the next 70 years, Drucker's writings focused on relationships between people. He wanted to know how organizations could help people do their best. He also wanted to help workers feel a sense of belonging in modern society.
Drucker didn't like being called a "guru," even though many people used that word for him. He joked that people used "guru" because "charlatan" (meaning someone who pretends to have special knowledge) was too long for headlines.
How He Became a Business Thinker
Drucker's career as a business thinker really took off in 1942. His early writings about society got him a chance to study General Motors (GM). At the time, GM was one of the biggest companies in the world.
Drucker was curious about how power worked in organizations. He spent two years studying GM. He went to every board meeting, talked to employees, and looked at how decisions were made.
His book, Concept of the Corporation, explained GM's structure. This led to many more articles, consulting jobs, and books for Drucker. However, GM wasn't very happy with his book. Drucker had suggested that GM should change some of its old ways of dealing with customers, dealers, and employees. GM's chairman, Alfred P. Sloan, was so upset that he pretended the book didn't exist.
Drucker taught that management is like a "liberal art." This means it uses ideas from many different areas. He mixed his management advice with lessons from history, sociology, psychology, and philosophy. He also believed that all organizations, including businesses, have a duty to help society. He wrote that if managers don't take responsibility for the common good, no one else will.
Drucker was very interested in "knowledge workers." These are people who work with their minds, not their hands. He studied how these workers, who often knew more than their bosses, could still work together in a big company. He explained how this new way of working challenged old ideas about how companies should be run.
His ideas worked well as businesses grew in the second half of the 1900s. Big companies had already figured out how to make things efficiently. Drucker helped them see new ways to improve. He believed that if companies struggled, it was often because of old ideas or misunderstandings.
Drucker built a big consulting business. He worked closely with top managers. He became famous in Japan, helping new business leaders rebuild their country after the war. He advised leaders at companies like General Motors, Sears, and IBM. He also advised nonprofit groups like the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army.
His Many Writings
Drucker wrote 39 books, and they have been translated into more than 36 languages. Two of his books are novels, and one is about his own life. He also helped write a book about Japanese painting. He made eight series of educational films about management.
He wrote a regular column in The Wall Street Journal for 10 years. He also wrote often for Harvard Business Review and The Atlantic Monthly.
His work is very popular in Japan. This became even more true after a novel called "What If the Female Manager of a High-School Baseball Team Read Drucker's Management" was published. This book shows the main character using one of Drucker's books to achieve great success. It was even made into an anime and a movie!
Main Ideas from Peter Drucker
- Making things simpler: Drucker believed that companies work best when they are decentralized. This means power is spread out, not just at the top. He thought companies often make too many products or hire too many people.
- Decline of "blue collar" workers: He predicted that fewer people would work in factories with their hands.
- The idea of "outsourcing": This means having other companies do tasks that are not central to your main business. For example, a car company might hire another company to handle its payroll.
- Importance of nonprofits: He called nonprofit groups the "third sector" (after private businesses and government). He believed they play a very important role in society.
- Doubts about big economic theories: Drucker thought that economists often failed to explain important parts of modern economies.
- Focus on what products do for us: He noted that economics often only looks at price. He thought it should also look at what products actually do for people.
- Knowing all costs: A successful company needs to know the costs of its entire production chain, not just its own part.
- Respect for workers: Drucker believed that employees are valuable assets, not just expenses. He taught that skilled workers are key to the modern economy. He thought managers should prepare people to do well and give them freedom to do their jobs.
- "Sickness of government": He believed that governments often struggle to provide new services that people need.
- "Planned abandonment": This means letting go of old successes that are no longer useful. Businesses and governments often hold onto things that worked in the past, even if they don't work now.
- Thinking before acting: He believed that acting without thinking is a cause of failure.
- Need for community: He thought people need a sense of belonging. He later suggested that volunteering in nonprofit groups could help create this feeling.
- Balancing goals: He believed businesses should balance many different needs and goals. This idea is central to his book The Practice of Management.
- Serving customers first: A company's main job is to serve its customers. Profit is important, but it's a condition for staying in business, not the main goal.
- Great companies are noble inventions: He believed that well-run companies could be among humanity's greatest creations.
- "Do what you do best and outsource the rest": This famous saying was developed by Drucker. It means focus on your main strengths and let other companies handle the rest.
Criticisms of Peter Drucker
The Wall Street Journal looked into some of Drucker's talks in 1987. They reported that he sometimes wasn't completely accurate with facts. For example, he once said that English was the official language for all employees at Japan's Mitsui trading company, which wasn't true. Drucker explained that he used stories to make a point, not to write exact history.
Also, while Drucker was known for predicting the future, he wasn't always right. For instance, he predicted that the main financial center of the United States would move from New York to Washington.
Some people also argue that one of Drucker's main ideas, "management by objectives," has problems. They say it's hard to put into practice. Companies sometimes focus too much on control instead of encouraging creativity to reach their goals.
Drucker's famous book, Concept of the Corporation, criticized General Motors. At the time, GM was seen as the most successful company in the world. Many GM executives were unhappy with Drucker for a long time. Even though Alfred P. Sloan, GM's chairman, wasn't personally hostile, he thought Drucker's criticisms of GM's management were "dead wrong."
Awards and Honors
Peter Drucker received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from US President George W. Bush on July 9, 2002. This is one of the highest awards a civilian can receive in the United States.
He also received honors from the government of Austria, his home country. These included important medals in 1974, 1991, and 1999. Japan also honored him with the Order of the Sacred Treasure in 1966.
Drucker was the Honorary Chairman of a foundation named after him, which is now called the Leader to Leader Institute. In 1969, New York University gave him its highest honor. He won the McKinsey Award seven times for his articles in Harvard Business Review, which is more than anyone else.
In 1996, Drucker was added to the Junior Achievement US Business Hall of Fame. He also received 25 honorary doctorates (special degrees) from universities around the world. His 1954 book The Practice of Management was voted the third most important management book of the 20th century.
In Claremont, California, a street was renamed "Drucker Way" in October 2009. This was to celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth. After he passed away, Drucker was also honored by being added to the Outsourcing Hall of Fame for his work in that field. In 2018, he was named the world's most influential business thinker on the Thinkers50.com list.
Peter Drucker's Legacy
At Claremont Graduate University, the Peter F. Drucker Graduate Management Center was created in 1987. It is now called the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management. This school continues to follow Drucker's ideas.
The annual Global Peter Drucker Forum started in 2009. This was to celebrate 100 years since Drucker's birth.
See also
In Spanish: Peter F. Drucker para niños
