Management guru: Peter Drucker | Peter Drucker | The Economist

Management guru: Peter Drucker | Peter Drucker | The Economist: "From Economist.com

The most enduring guru of them all, Peter Drucker (1909-2005) was the author of more than three dozen books, translated into almost as many languages. In 1997 McKinsey Quarterly said: “In the world of management gurus, there is no debate. Peter Drucker is the one guru to whom other gurus kowtow.” But unlike some of those that might have kowtowed to him, Drucker was a guru with charm who never set out to diminish others. Some commentators have remarked that although he was firmly embedded in the human-relations school of management—along with Douglas McGregor (see article) and Warren Bennis (see article), for example—the guru he himself most admired was Frederick Winslow Taylor, the father of “scientific” management.
“There are many books I could have written that are better than the ones I actually wrote. My best book would have been 'Managing Ignorance', and I’m very sorry I didn’t write it.”

Though born in Vienna, Drucker started his professional life in Frankfurt as a financial reporter, and he never lost his journalistic eye for a witty aphorism or a memorable metaphor. His writing is never dull, but nor is it superficial, in a field where both dullness and superficiality are common. He brought"