Fast Track recording for Peter F. Drucker’s book, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, and Practices. Bill Corsair introduces Peter F. Drucker and provides information on the book before discussing its premise. Management, according to Drucker, is not just common sense--it is an organized body of knowledge. Corsair then welcomes the narrator, who proceeds to summarize Drucker’s book. Management is tasks, the narrator begins, but it is also people. A manager may be responsible for the work of others, but, also, may not. This is because the manager’s primary responsibility, and the primary measure of managerial success, is the contribution the manager makes to an organization. Ultimately, the role of the manager is to plan, organize, integrate, and measure. All managers are members of management groups, and all managers are executives. Managers must create a functioning, organized whole out of separate resources in an organization, and this process centers on five basic operations. First, managers must establish objectives; second, managers must organize; third, managers must motivate and communicate; fourth, managers must measure and create yardsticks for the organization workforce, and traditionally, this is the weakest area of management operations; and fifth, managers must develop people, including the self. Managers must have character as an attribute of the self, not genius. A proper managerial job must make a visible contribution to the success of the enterprise, and all managerial jobs should be designed to provide their greatest satisfaction through growth in performance. Objectives of a firm must always derive from the goals of the business enterprise. Managers’ “letters” offer a great way to professionally highlight inconsistencies that may be hampering their work. The final proof of the sincerity of a company is emphasis on integrity. Only executives make major decisions, so making decisions is therefore a managerial skill of the first order. The Japanese are the only people who have developed a systematic and standardized approach to making decisions--their decisions are highly effective, but their approach violates every accepted rule in decision-making, since their process relies on consensus. Decision-making is not a mechanical job; it is risk-taking, and it challenges judgment. What is central to it is understanding the problem. The first step in management is identifying the building blocks that have to be encompassed in the final structure. Managing people is always a “conscience” area, and it serves to remind a company what it should be doing and is not doing. The simpler the organization structure, the less that can go wrong. What makes an organization structure good, are the problems it does not create. Organization is a means to an end, rather than an end unto itself. The test of a healthy business is the performance of its people, rather than the perfection of its organization structure. Corsair then reappears following the narrator’s summary, and begins interviewing Drucker on questions of management, particularly on topics of human relations and the importance of knowing one’s self, and what books Drucker has written that he believes to be most significant.
Drucker, Peter F. (Peter Ferdinand), 1909-2005 New York University New York University. Graduate School of Business Administration Fast-track (Alpha Books (Firm)) Management Management by objectives Management science Management by objectives - Programmed instruction Organization Organizations Organizational behavior Organizational change Organizational effectiveness Organizational Innovation Organization theory Organization - Research Japanese Japan Consensus (Social sciences) Integrity Character Resource management Executives Executive management Decision making Performance Corsair, Bill Budgeting Corporate growth
Source
Original recording, April 1989; Drucker Archives; Box 68
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