Peter F. Drucker
Peter F. Drucker was a prominent writer, consultant, professor, and social philosopher, renowned for his transformative ideas on business management that influenced corporate structures globally. Born in Kaasgraben, Austria, in 1909 to Jewish parents who converted to Christianity, Drucker was steeped in a culture of intellectual discourse from a young age. He completed his education at the Döbling Gymnasium and earned a PhD from the University of Frankfurt before relocating to the United States in the 1930s, where he began his career at Sarah Lawrence College.
Drucker is best known for his emphasis on the human aspects of business, advocating for employee motivation, innovation, and moral balance between organizational and individual interests. His 1939 book, *The End of Economic Man*, marked the beginning of his influential writing career, leading to consulting roles with major corporations like General Motors and General Electric. Among his notable contributions to management philosophy are concepts such as decentralization in business, the value of workers as assets, and the importance of understanding customer needs.
Throughout his career, Drucker also engaged with nonprofit organizations, sharing his insights to enhance their operations. He remained active in lecturing and writing until shortly before his death in 2005, leaving behind a legacy that continues to shape management education and practices today.
Peter F. Drucker
Business writer and philosopher
- Born: November 19, 1909
- Place of Birth: Vienna, Austria
- Died: November 11, 2005
- Place of Death: Claremont, California
Education: Döbling Gymnasium; University of Frankfurt
Significance: Peter Drucker was a writer, consultant, professor, and social philosopher whose ideas about business management had a tremendous influence on corporate structure around the world.
Background
Peter Drucker was born and raised in the village of Kaasgraben, which later became a part of Vienna, Austria. He was the son of Jewish parents who had converted to Christianity. Drucker’s mother had studied medicine; his father was a lawyer. Drucker’s parents often invited Viennese intellectuals and thinkers to their home, and young Peter was strongly influenced by their ideas and conversation.
Drucker finished school at the Döbling Gymnasium and then moved to Hamburg, Germany, to find work. He became a journalist, writing first for the Österreichische Volkswirt (The Austrian Economist) and then, in Frankfurt, for the Daily Frankfurter General Anzeiger.He also read philosophy and completed his PhD at the University of Frankfurt.
In 1933, when Hitler was elected to office, Drucker left Germany for London, where he met his wife, Doris Schmidt. The two emigrated to the United States, where Drucker became a professor at Sarah Lawrence College in New York.
Life’s Work
According to the Drucker Institute statement, "Peter Drucker’s Life and Legacy," Drucker "was a writer, professor, management consultant and self-described ‘social ecologist,’ who explored the way human beings organize themselves and interact much the way an ecologist would observe and analyze the biological world." Drucker applied his discoveries and beliefs about human nature to the practical organization of businesses; his ideas and philosophies continued to have an important impact on business management and ethics into the twenty-first century.
Drucker believed that work was more than a means to make a living. He was among the first to advocate such ideas as motivating employees with incentives for good work, encouraging innovation, and supporting employees’ personal and spiritual growth. His philosophy centered on the idea that businesses should maintain a moral balance between the good of the organization and the good of the individual as well as between profit and philanthropy.
In 1939, Drucker’s book, The End of Economic Man, launched Drucker into his career as a writer and consultant in the world of business management. The book attracted the interest of luminaries such as Winston Churchill, and it also led to his first important consulting project at the General Motors Corporation (GM). Drucker was invited to sit in, for two years, on GM’s board meetings, conduct interviews, and write about his findings.
In 1946 Drucker produced the book Concept of the Corporation, based on his experiences at GM. He wrote in a positive vein about the company’s unusual multidivisional structure, but he also criticized the way in which GM managed its relationships with employees, clients, and dealers. Although the upper management at GM was unhappy with the book, it became a major influence on business philosophy.
Drucker’s experience with GM, along with his writings, led to consulting opportunities with many other companies, including Sears, General Electric (GE), and IBM. Following World War II, he also worked with Japanese businesses to rebuild the economy. At the same time, he moved to NYU and then to Claremont College in California, where he taught for over thirty years. While at Claremont, Drucker developed one of the first executive masters programs in business management.
By the 1950s and 1960s, Peter Drucker had become a major force in management education and philosophy. Some of his axioms, such as "Doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right" and "What gets measured gets improved," were integrated into the structure of business education.
In his later years, Drucker became increasingly interested in the work of nonprofit organizations and thus began consulting for large nonprofit groups and agencies such as the American Red Cross and the Salvation Army. Five years before his death, Drucker was still actively lecturing and writing.
Impact
Peter Drucker’s influence was felt in business education, business management, and business philosophy throughout his lifetime and beyond. Among his most significant contributions were his extraordinarily accurate predictions for the future of business. These insights included:
- The importance of decentralization to business success—an idea that has influenced not only corporations but also nonprofits and governments;
- The idea of workers as assets to be prized, whose trust and respect should be earned;
- The concept of a business as a community of people;
- The critical importance of the customer—and the consequent significance of marketing.
In the 1970s, Drucker was also one of the first to write about the advent of knowledge workers (a category of worker distinct from the manual worker) and their increasing importance to the global economy.
Several organizations have been founded in Drucker’s name, including The Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management (now the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute), the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, the Drucker Archives, and the Drucker Foundation (which teaches and gives award for corporate and nonprofit management).
Personal Life
Peter Drucker married Doris Schmidt in 1934. The couple had four children and six grandchildren. One of Drucker’s grandchildren is tech entrepreneur Nova Spivack. Drucker died in 2005, predeceasing his wife by nine years.
Bibliography
Byrne, John A. "The Man Who Invented Management." Bloomberg Business. Bloomberg, 27 Nov. 2005. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2005-11-27/the-man-who-invented-management>.
Drucker, Peter. The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done. New York: Harperbusiness, 2006. Print.
"Drucker's childhood and youth in Vienna." Drucker Society of Austria.Drucker Society of Austria, n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.druckersociety.at/index.php/peterdruckerhome/biography>.
Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. "Peter F. Drucker/" Encyclopaedia Britannica.Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc., n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.britannica.com/biography/Peter-F-Drucker>.
"Peter Drucker: A Resource Guide." Library of Congress, 2024, guides.loc.gov/peter-drucker. Accessed 29 Sept. 2024.
"Peter Drucker’s Life and Legacy." Drucker Institute.Drucker Institute, n.d. Web. 28 Feb. 2016. <http://www.druckerinstitute.com/peter-druckers-life-and-legacy/>.