Applying the Wisdom of the World's Greatest Management Thinker
November 25, 2013
Cohen (Heroic Leadership), president of the Institute of Leader Arts, presents 40 lessons based on the ideas of management guru Peter Drucker, his former professor. Though Drucker has already covered this ground in several books, here Cohen promises to provide a sense of the "how" rather than the "what" concerning Drucker's innovative business practices. Despite the inclusion of practical chapters on subjects such as "Fear of Job Loss" and "How to Avoid Failure," these are exceptions and not the rule. Instead, we primarily find practical examples, stories, and anecdotes relating to chapter themes. It is in the included success stories of IBM, Enron, and others, that we find discussions of how these companies overcame challenges. Cohen also discusses social responsibility, moral integrity, and business ethics, but the latter discussion reads tersely and might raise more questions and objections than intended. Overall, though there are wonderful nuggets, Cohen doesn't quite succeed in producing a "how-to-do-it" book, offering instead a "how-it-has-been-done" book.
November 15, 2013
Peter Drucker (1909-2005), "the father of modern management," has been praised for the practical wisdom he offered to managers on concepts such as decentralization, outsourcing, employees as assets, and the importance of knowledge workers. Cohen (president, Inst. of Leader Arts; California Inst. of Advanced Management; A Class with Drucker) has distilled Drucker's teachings down to 40 chapters on how to get things done. The book organizes the business leader's thoughts around four concepts: people, management, organization, and marketing and innovation. Cohen devotes roughly ten chapters to each concept. He then identifies one of Drucker's core principles and outlines how to put it into practice. While the author accomplishes his goal of creating a straightforward set of lessons from the body of Drucker's work, the chapters feel at times too reductive. The book enters a crowded market of Peter Drucker's core teachings including The Essential Drucker, Classic Drucker, and The Daily Drucker. The difference here is that Cohen provides new insight on the practice of applying Drucker's principles to modern business management. VERDICT This work will appeal to new business managers and may be a useful introduction to Drucker's work for first-year MBA students.--John Rodzvilla, Emerson Coll., Boston
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