This is part three of an audio recording of a class on entrepreneurship and innovation taught by Peter Drucker. He begins by continuing a discussion from part two and states that if you have the right question you can bail out the wrong answer, but if you are using the wrong question you could be stuck. He also talks about how most people are raised to fear conflict, but the approach should instead be how to use it constructively as a means to understand it. Mary Parker Follet, a “Boston bluestocking political scientist” went from politics and government to management. Drucker says that management came from engineering and psychology, two disciplines which oppose conflict, but politics is the use of dissent to understand an issue more deeply. So Follet had a very different approach. Drucker also believes that “real decisions are never between right and wrong but always between right and right”. Disagreements between intelligent reasonable people usually mean they have right answers to different questions. He goes on to explain that there are no textbook social situations, because there are infinite variables. Drucker then discusses his relationship with Alfred Sloan of General Motors, as well as their respective books on the company. He says Sloan presents himself in his book as a manager should be but not as he was in actuality. Drucker describes him as a warm generous man but with a short temper.
Drucker, Peter F. (Peter Ferdinand), 1909-2005 Poliomyelitis Diagnosis Questioning Conflicts Conflict management Management Follett, Mary Parker, 1868-1933 Engineers Engineering Psychology Political science Children Physicians Sloan, Alfred P. (Alfred Pritchard), 1875-1966 General Motors Corporation Books World War II Plato Roosevelt, Franklin D. (Franklin Delano), 1882-1945 Resource allocation Cost Economics Automobile industry and trade Raw materials Hospitals Entrepreneurship Innovation
Source
MiniDisc: P.D. INE 1/27/90 part 3; 1/27/90; Box 89, minidiscs and floppies
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