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"No financial man will ever understand business because financial people think a company makes money. A company makes shoes, and no financial man understands th

"No financial man will ever understand business because financial people think a company makes money. A company makes shoes, and no financial man understands that. They think money is real. Shoes are real. Money is an end result." Peter Drucker

InclinedPlane 17y ago
This is silly. Both aspects are important. Someone who thinks money isn't real may make huge basic business blunders like not paying the right taxes, not managing their debt/income correctly, or just making horribly inefficient business choices (I've seen this a lot). The result may be a company that goes out of business even though it's perfectly viable if run correctly. Or a company that dies because it inadvertently violates tax law, or labor law, or environmental law, etc, etc. Or merely a company that doesn't compete as effectively against its cohorts and falls so far behind it becomes irrelevant.
- markpercival 17y ago
  No, what's silly is that people still quote Peter Drucker with a straight face. Ever been frustrated by the many layers of middle management in corporate America today, or laughed at a dilbert strip? Blame Peter Drucker. Just look at the results of all this "management as a science" bullshit - only one fifth of employees feel engaged with their jobs today, as was recently pointed out by the WSJ (http://blogs.wsj.com/management/2009/12/16/management’s-dirty-little-secret http://blogs.wsj.com/management/2009/12/16/management’s-dirt...).
  - brianlash 17y ago
    I fail to see the connection you draw between Drucker's teaching (eg What gets measured gets managed) and the poor management you see in corporations today. Have you ever read any of his articles/books? Can you point to anything particularly offensive? Anyway Drucker wasn't a "management as a science" guy. He was an economist, or a microeconomist if you're nitpicking.
    - markpercival 17y ago
      He certainly fits the mold of a microeconomist, but he revolutionized the study of management in the US. I don't think it's at all disingenuous to say that he drove management science to what it is today. And to sum up his teachings as "What gets measured gets managed" is fairly trite when he wrote 30+ books on the subject of organizations and management. So yes, I think "management as a science" guy is totally appropriate. Or as he is described so often on book covers - "Managment Guru" My point is, we have MBA's coming out of programs which rely a great deal on the teaching of Peter Drucker, and companies are starting to wake up to the realization that Drucker's "Knowledge worker"/MBA doesn't possess the generalizable skills that he argued for. Drucker argued for large corporations and layering, giving rise to the current bought of middle management that make up the majority of cruft in a today's organization. And yes, I was required to read Drucker my my management classes.
      - brianlash 17y ago
        eg means 'for example.' I wasn't summing 30+ books worth of economic thought.
  - boredguy8 17y ago
    And absent a control that article is still meaningless. Perhaps 1/100th of employees would feel engaged with their jobs today absent Drucker. Additionally, the line "success depends on a company’s ability to unleash the initiative, imagination and passion of employees at all levels" made my head spin. I really don't wan the unleashed initiative of a lot of people--they're just not that bright, not that creative, and left to their own devices they'd be potentially counter-productive.
deleted 17y ago
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InclinedPlane 17y ago

This is silly. Both aspects are important. Someone who thinks money isn't real may make huge basic business blunders like not paying the right taxes, not managing their debt/income correctly, or just making horribly inefficient business choices (I've seen this a lot). The result may be a company that goes out of business even though it's perfectly viable if run correctly. Or a company that dies because it inadvertently violates tax law, or labor law, or environmental law, etc, etc. Or merely a company that doesn't compete as effectively against its cohorts and falls so far behind it becomes irrelevant.

markpercival 17y ago
No, what's silly is that people still quote Peter Drucker with a straight face. Ever been frustrated by the many layers of middle management in corporate America today, or laughed at a dilbert strip? Blame Peter Drucker. Just look at the results of all this "management as a science" bullshit - only one fifth of employees feel engaged with their jobs today, as was recently pointed out by the WSJ (http://blogs.wsj.com/management/2009/12/16/management’s-dirty-little-secret http://blogs.wsj.com/management/2009/12/16/management’s-dirt...).
- brianlash 17y ago
  I fail to see the connection you draw between Drucker's teaching (eg What gets measured gets managed) and the poor management you see in corporations today. Have you ever read any of his articles/books? Can you point to anything particularly offensive? Anyway Drucker wasn't a "management as a science" guy. He was an economist, or a microeconomist if you're nitpicking.
  - markpercival 17y ago
    He certainly fits the mold of a microeconomist, but he revolutionized the study of management in the US. I don't think it's at all disingenuous to say that he drove management science to what it is today. And to sum up his teachings as "What gets measured gets managed" is fairly trite when he wrote 30+ books on the subject of organizations and management. So yes, I think "management as a science" guy is totally appropriate. Or as he is described so often on book covers - "Managment Guru" My point is, we have MBA's coming out of programs which rely a great deal on the teaching of Peter Drucker, and companies are starting to wake up to the realization that Drucker's "Knowledge worker"/MBA doesn't possess the generalizable skills that he argued for. Drucker argued for large corporations and layering, giving rise to the current bought of middle management that make up the majority of cruft in a today's organization. And yes, I was required to read Drucker my my management classes.
    - brianlash 17y ago
      eg means 'for example.' I wasn't summing 30+ books worth of economic thought.
- boredguy8 17y ago
  And absent a control that article is still meaningless. Perhaps 1/100th of employees would feel engaged with their jobs today absent Drucker. Additionally, the line "success depends on a company’s ability to unleash the initiative, imagination and passion of employees at all levels" made my head spin. I really don't wan the unleashed initiative of a lot of people--they're just not that bright, not that creative, and left to their own devices they'd be potentially counter-productive.

deleted 17y ago

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