The Definitive Drucker 

by Elizabeth Edersheim - Book Review

"What differentiates organizations is whether they can make common people perform
uncommon things"

All throughout his life, Peter Drucker who is considered the "father of modern
management" has written 39 books and a countless number of articles that have
continued to inspire and influence people and organizations throughout the world for
over 70 years. His teaching spread from books to seminars and classes, even teaching
at the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management with his last class at the age of
92. His life came to an end at 95 due to natural causes, but his teachings continue to
live on in the books we read today and the people he has inspired throughout his
career.

Elizabeth Edersheim, strategic consultant and author, had a fantastic opportunity to

have full access to Peter Drucker's life for a year and a half before he passed away, and
in her book The Definitive Drucker she outlines Peter Drucker's core principles and how
they relate to the business world we live in today. Elizabeth has done an amazing job
not only capturing and clarifying Drucker's management concepts and practices, but
also relating them into questions and actions that relate to the modern organization.
The book goes over how Drucker's ideals came to be in the 1930's and onwards and
how they still apply today. There are five main themes Elizabeth goes over:

1. Doing Business in the Current World and the Customer

2. Innovation and Abandonment of Products and Ideas
3. Collaboration and Orchestration of Resources and People
4. The People of the Organization and Knowledge of the People
5. Effective Decision Making and tying the above four steps together.
6.
Gathering information from Peter Drucker himself in his nineties and his books,
Elizabeth Edersheim does a memorable job of compiling everything that Peter Drucker
has achieved in his life with numerous interviews from CEO's that have been inspired by
Drucker. She has multiple examples of successful companies that Drucker has lead to
success by implementing his core ideas and making CEO's ask "the right questions",
from General Electric to the investment firm Edward Jones.

Whether it's Drucker's idea of "Who is your customer, or who isn't your customer", the
stories of ServiceMaster's dedication to the people of the organization and playing on
their people's strengths or even the innovative strengths of General Electric and how
Jack Welch created the mantra of "Be #1 or #2 in the business or abandon it", The
Definitive Drucker goes into thoughtful and precise detail. The importance of knowledge
1
workers of today is explained in huge detail and of critical importance as this is the
engine that drives successful corporations today (Google, Apple, P&G, Toyota) along
with how one makes a decision and degenerates it into work.

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A must read for anyone that wants to be more effective in their organization, whether
you are a floor worker to a CEO. Highly recommended for those that want to
understand and begin to study the writings of Peter Drucker and how it still relates to
the modern corporate environment we live in today and in the future.

Influential Drucker Trivia from The Definitive Drucker:

"In 1954, Peter told his publisher "Management needs strategy." His publisher
responded that "strategy" was a term for war, not business - and it would repel
readers. By 1975 (21 years later), the topic of strategy dominated the top management
writings in journals and books."

Jorrian Gelink
Management Architect
http://www.jorrian.com

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