The Essential Drucker
Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker is perhaps the best known author on the topic of management and economics. He wrote his first book in 1939, and has enough books on the market that people ask "Where do I start reading Drucker? Which of his works are essential?"

The answer is The Essential Drucker. It contains 26 chapters taken from his various works published between 1954 and 1999, offering an introduction to management, and an overview of his works on management.

If anything, this work is even clearer and more to the point than his previous books. Reading these paragraphs buried within a book would make you want to get out your highlighter pen. At one point I got up to send a note to some people in an organization I belong to, because what he said seemed to apply so strongly to it. I've always hated the phrase "we don't pay volunteers so we cannot make demands upon them," and Drucker points out how things have changed.

The opening words of chapter three startled me, and many of the managers I've dealt with would consider it to be utter heresy. Drucker says that the thought "a business is an organization to make a profit" is "not only false, it is irrelevant." While profitability is important, Drucker says "There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer." From there he goes into marketing and innovation, and fascinating reading it is. This chapter, at the very least, is essential reading for anyone running their own business.

Chapter five deals with social impacts and social problems. Management is responsible for the impacts their organization has on the society around them, even if the society doesn't object. After all, there is no guarantee that society will continue on this course. This leads into the limits of authority for businesses and business management, and Drucker points out some of the pitfalls of both action and inaction.

Various other chapters such as Management by Objectives, Picking People, Nonprofits, Effectiveness, Communications, Leadership, and Knowing Yourself, are treated in a similar way. Drucker comes right out to say what he believes, and why he believes it. The writing is clear and the arguments are well laid out. The examples are vivid and seem to be well chosen. Even if you disagree with what he says, you need to be aware of the arguments he is making. Many of your competitors are going to be using his advice.

I'd like to believe that managers and business owners would say "but I know all this" after reading this book. But the cynic within me says that even if they know, they don't act on that knowledge. Perhaps they need to be reminded. Much in the way that any writer needs to reread Strunk and White's The Elements of Style on a regular basis to stay sharp, it would do managers and owners good to read The Essential Drucker.

The Essential Drucker should be on the bookshelf of any manager of a business or nonprofit society.

Harper Collins, 2001
ISBN 0-06-621087-9