A Class with Drucker

The Lost Lessons of the World’s Greatest Management Teacher

Class with Drucker, A

Author: William A. Cohen
Pub Date: 2007
Your Price: $24.95
ISBN: 0814409199
Format: Hardcover

 


A Brief Biography of the World's Greatest Management Teacher—Peter F. Drucker

Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) was a teacher, writer, and consultant whose groundbreaking work turned management theory into a serious discipline. Recognized as the Father of Modern Management, he championed the concepts and advanced the practices of decentralization, privatization, and empowerment, as well as coined the term "knowledge worker." Beyond the nuts-and-bolts of how business manages its resources, he focused on how public and private organizations operate morally and ethically within society.

Born in Vienna, Drucker earned a doctorate in International Law from the University of Frankfurt in 1931, where he first met his wife. In 1933, he moved to London to escape the oppression of Hitler, working as an investment analyst and journalist. Four years later, he married and departed for the United States, serving as an American correspondent for a number of large British newspapers including the Financial Times.

In 1942, Drucker joined the faculty of Bennington College in Vermont. The next year, he put his teaching career on hold to devote two years to studying the management structure of General Motors. The experience resulted in a seminal book, Concept of the Corporation. Making a compelling case for the greater human good and potential of a business organization, it became a best-seller in the United States and Japan, launching his international reputation as an innovative and influential business thinker.

From 1950 to 1971, Drucker was a professor of management at the Graduate School of Business of New York University. He was awarded the Presidential Citation, the university's highest honor. He then relocated to Los Angeles, where he was instrumental in developing country's first executive management program for working professionals at Claremont Graduate School. In 1987, Claremont Graduate University named the academic venture The Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management. Drucker taught his last class at the school he had founded in the spring of 2002, reluctantly retiring at the age of 91.

Drucker wrote 39 books, which have been translated into more than 30 languages. His works range from the practical Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices to the visionary Managing in the Next Society. He was a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, The Atlantic Monthly, and The Economist, as well as a columnist for The Wall Street Journal from 1975 to 1995. He was also a highly sought consultant, specializing in strategy and policy for both the corporate and nonprofit sectors. The Salvation Army, C.A.R.E., the American Red Cross, the Navajo Indian Tribal Council, the American Heart Association, and the Girl Scouts of America all benefited from his counsel, usually pro bono.

The recipient of honorary doctorates from universities in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Great Britain, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, and the United States, Dr. Drucker was also recognized for his contributions to the field of management with a Presidential Medal of Freedom in July 2002. He died in November 2005, at the age of 95, at his home in Claremont, California.

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