A Year with Peter Drucker: Fifty-Two Weeks of Coaching for Leadership Effectiveness

Peter Drucker was an Austrian-born American management consultant, who mentored leading executives for more than half a century and wrote 39 books and numerous articles. Named by BusinessWeek as "the man who invented management," his work had a huge impact on large-scale organizations, as well as on the lives and careers of those he took under his wing.

This book gives today's readers the chance to experience Drucker's mentorship and understand his management principles and techniques, if not first-hand then from his books, from transcripts of interviews with him and his mentees, and through the eyes of an author who worked alongside him for 26 years.

So if you want to become a more effective leader, then this book's for you. It'll show you how to lead with integrity and purpose, and how to build a successful organization while doing the right thing by your customers, employees, shareholders and society as a whole. It'll teach you to manage your time better, to navigate change, and to play to your strengths so that you make a lasting contribution.

"A Year with Peter Drucker" will be of most value to leaders of large organizations, but it's also relevant to entrepreneurs and managers of small teams.

Readers with a particular interest in management theory and in the big issues facing our society will be fascinated to read Drucker's ideas. But Drucker was passionate about the individual as well as the organization. He wanted everyone to use their natural abilities to make a difference. So if you're not a leader or manager, you'll still get a lot from this book. You'll be challenged to look at your personal and professional life and ask whether you're putting your talents to the best use.

The latter sections of the book are particularly relevant to people entering the second half of their lives and looking for a new direction, but it's suitable for readers of all ages. After all, Drucker suggested we start thinking about our legacy while we're still young.

The author, Joseph A. Maciariello, was Drucker's colleague at what's now the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. He's now senior fellow and Marie Rankin Clarke professor emeritus of social science and management at the school. Maciariello also worked directly with Drucker during the last six years of his life, collaborating on a number of publications before Drucker's death in 2005, aged almost 96.

So keep listening to hear the fundamental questions organizations must ask in order to thrive, to learn how to balance continuity and change, and to grasp the importance of doing work that fits your values.

"A Year with Peter Drucker" is divided into 52 short chapters, one for each week of the year. Each chapter follows the same structure: there's an introduction that sets the context for the lesson you're about to learn, followed by readings, reflections and exercises.

Every chapter has a new reading from one of Drucker's many publications, and sometimes an extract from an interview with him or from a conversation with one of his mentees. Maciariello includes his own reflections and each chapter ends with questions that help you apply what you've learned.

This structure works really well if you use the book as intended – reading a chapter a week and working through the questions. If you read chunks of it in one sitting, it may feel repetitive and perhaps a little heavy-going.

The book isn't a light read. There are some case studies and interesting anecdotes, but there's also plenty of theory, history and social commentary. Some readers may want to skip some sections and go straight to the chapter headings most relevant to them.

Maciariello subdivides the 52 weeks into 13 major topics, to make it easier to do this. These topics include: effective leaders; setting your sights on the important, not the urgent; structuring your organization; lessons from the social sector on the power of purpose; developing oneself from success to significance, and character and legacy.

As some of these headings suggest, "A Year with Peter Drucker" encourages deep thinking and explores big questions around meaning, values and purpose. Drucker believed people who'd resolved life's existential questions and who had a strong faith were the most successful. A number of the organizations profiled in this book are Christian non-profits, including successful evangelical Christian mega-churches and The Salvation Army. This focus may not be to everyone's taste, but Maciariello concentrates on what we can learn from the structures and management processes of these organizations, rather than on the faith on which they're built.

So let's take a closer look at some of Drucker's management theories, starting with the three fundamental questions organizations must ask in order to be successful.

Drucker believed the purpose of any business or institution was to satisfy a human need, be that for a product or a service. So the first thing an organization must do is define its purpose by asking, "What is our business or mission?"

This may seem like a simple question, but it can only be answered by looking at the business from the outside – from the point of view of the customer. It's the job of management to find out exactly what customers see, think, believe, and want, by asking them directly, not by trying to read their minds. Coming up with a business description or mission statement an entire leadership group agrees on can cause conflict, but it's vital to get this right and the process can help give direction to the business.

Another crucial question is, "Who is the customer?" An organization may have a range of customers – retailers and wholesalers, for example – so it's important to consider them all.

The final question – "What does the customer value?" – is perhaps the most important, but often the most neglected. Managers think they know the answer, believing customers want quality. But customers don't buy products per se – they buy the satisfaction of a need or want, and their definition of value can vary.

Drucker gave shoes as an example. For a teenage girl, value lies in the fact the shoe is highly fashionable. She's not too worried about price or durability – she just wants to be on trend. A few years later, the same woman's definition of value is different. Her priorities are now quality, price, comfort, and fit. Managers shouldn't try to guess a customer's values – they should hear it straight from the horse's mouth.

These questions may seem basic, but we think they can help focus an organization, whether it's in start-up stage, on the verge of a re-launch, or trying to maintain a leading market position.

Whatever your organization, you may want to list your customers, perhaps dividing them into primary, secondary and tertiary clients. And you may also want to do some market research to understand what customer needs are being satisfied by your products and what consumers consider valuable.

Let's now look at what this book has to say about continuity and change. An organization must continually grow and change in order to survive. Continuity and change are not opposites. They're on a continuum, Drucker said. The key is to learn to balance the two, especially when an organization is growing rapidly. That's why Maciariello includes transcripts of Drucker's conversations with Rick Warren to discuss these issues. Warren is the author of "The Purpose Driven Life" and the leader of Saddleback Community Church, an evangelical Christian mega-church in California.

Saddleback was expanding rapidly and "The Purpose Driven Life" was selling fast when Warren sought Drucker's advice on leadership development and organization structure.

Drucker said one way to ensure continuity while managing change was to have people on board who are committed to the organization's fundamental mission, purpose, values, and definition of performance and results. These are an organization's foundations – they have to be solid in order to allow for radical innovation and change.

He also advised making sure information flows freely and everyone is informed of imminent change. This is particularly important today, as more employees move to remote working and organizations expand nationally or globally.

Leaders must ensure that the balance between continuity and change is reflected in their policies on pay, recognition and rewards. Those who deliver steady, on-going improvements must know they're as valued as those who constantly innovate.

Organizations also need to be agile, able to move funds and people from one area to another quickly. This involves good decision making and a willingness to abandon projects that aren't working, in favor of new opportunities.

This section closes with some questions we think individuals and organizations would be wise to ask. Are your foundations and values strong enough to keep your organization together during times of rapid change? Are you keeping people informed of changes that might affect them, including employees, suppliers and customers? And, are you encouraging innovation to meet the potential demands of the future?

The final section of the book, on character and legacy, asks some deep questions and encourages readers to become more self-aware. What are your strengths? Are you making the most of your natural abilities and gifts? What are your values? Are you and your organization living those values? And, what do you want to be remembered for?

We particularly like the discussion on what to do when your values and strengths are in conflict. We may be really good at something but it may not align with our values or be something we want to devote our lives to.

Drucker had to address this conflict when he was a young investment banker in London in the mid-1930s. He was successful and the work complemented his strengths, but it didn't fit his values. He didn't see himself making a contribution as an asset manager and he didn't want to end up "the richest man in the cemetery," to use his words. He realized his values were linked to people. So he quit. He had no job and the economy was in deep depression, but he felt it was the right thing to do.

If you want to find out whether you're living and working in accordance with your values, you can do the mirror test. You can ask yourself what kind of person you want to see in the mirror in the morning when you brush your teeth. If you're not comfortable with the person looking back at you, you're on a downward path toward dissatisfaction and low self-esteem.

It's also important to take the long view and ask what you want to be remembered for. The answer will change as you age, so Maciariello suggests asking this question every now and then. We may not all leave a legacy the size and scale of Drucker's, but he believes we all have a contribution to make – we just need to know what we want this to look like, then work towards it.

We really like the way the author encourages us to take action on Drucker's teachings, rather than just read about his management techniques. But there is a lot of theory in this book and we'd have liked to hear more concrete examples of how companies are applying Drucker's principles. We hear about a few – General Motors and Ford, for example – but we'd have liked more.

That said, Maciariello does make sure we get good insight into the leaders we do hear from. We particularly like the interview with James Osborne, national commander of The Salvation Army, which Drucker said was the most effective organization in the United States.

We hear how it evaluates performance and defines results, allocates resources based on urgent need, fundraises successfully because people know it delivers, and how it abandons ineffective projects quickly. These are all great lessons for big, profit-making corporations, as well as for non-profits.

We can't do justice to the breadth and depth of "A Year with Peter Drucker" in this short review. But we can recommend you give it a go, delving into the passages that speak to you, skimming over those that don't, and taking the time to reflect on the questions that come up. Whatever your field or stage of life, this book will show you how to be an effective, purpose-driven leader and make a lasting contribution.

"A Year with Peter Drucker" is published by HarperCollins.

That's the end of this episode of Book Insights. Thanks for listening.