The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management (Collins Business Essentials) by Peter F. Drucker
Father of modern management, social commentator, and preeminent business philosopher, Peter F. Drucker analyzed economics and society for more than sixty years. Now for readers everywhere who are concerned with the ways that management practices and principles affect the performance of organizations, individuals, and society, there is The Essential Drucker—an invaluable compilation of essential materials from the works of a management legend.
Containing twenty-six core selections, The Essential Drucker covers the basic principles and concerns of management and its problems, challenges, and opportunities, giving managers, executives, and professionals the tools to perform the tasks that the economy and society of tomorrow will demand of them.
If you are not familiar with Professor Drucker, he is generally considered to be the first person to think systematically about what management is and needs to become. He was also the first to identify that we were moving into a knowledge-based society where the focus of work and the ways that work is organized would have to be totally transformed. His definition of what a business must do is the most often quoted one around: "The purpose of a business is to create a customer." Innovation and marketing are the prime tasks. The book is especially deep in references to his seminal thinking on how to innovate and to operate entrepreneurial businesses. He was also the first twentieth century thinker to see the connection between management of for profit and nonprofit organizations, and that both types of organizations are needed in growing numbers for a sound society. This book is also deeply presents his thinking about the social responsibility of business.
He states that "No decision has been made unless carrying it out in specific steps has become someone's work assignment and responsibility. Until then, there are only good intentions". He then explains the importance of creating disagreement, rather than consensus. He states that disagreement provides alternatives and stimulates imagination and that "The first rule in decision making is that one does not make a decision unless there is disagreement".
This book is an excellent introduction to management. As you may have guessed from the quotes, it contains many of the most famous Druckerisms. I recommend this book as a must read to every manager and anybody interested in management.
