Happy 100th Birthday Mr Drucker. I am glad to say you were not a management guru

This week would have been the 100th birthday of Peter Drucker who is widely regarded as one of the greatest management thinkers of all time.  Drucker, who died 4 years ago, was not one for pomp and circumstance.  Rather he was a practical thinker who developed his guru status through 60 years of management thought and incite.  Affectionately known by even his peers as “the father of modern management” and “the world’s greatest management thinker” he was an intellectual who was influenced by the likes of John Maynard Keynes and Joseph Schumpeter.

Unlike more flamboyant gurus such as Tom Peters or Stephen Covey who seem to change what they are pedaling just in time to spawn another book or launch another lecture tour (or in their words ‘to reflect the changing environment’), Drucker sought neither fame nor fortune.  In a world where business schools seem to have more clout than universities (certainly they seem able to command higher fees), management consultancy is a $300 billion industry and a management guru can command $60,000 a lecture, Drucker showed little appetite for the fire and brimstone theatre of his contemporaries.  Instead he continued to espouse a practical approach to management theory, often using anecdotes from medieval history or 18th-century English literature in an attempt to make his point more grounded. 

It is ironic then that he is probably more responsible than anyone for the creation of this inflated industry and even the concept of the ‘management guru’.  His 1946 book “Concept of the Corporation” is widely regarded as being the first book of its kind and as such has been described as one of the “most influential management texts ever written” and is still very pertinent to today’s business environment.

Drucker was not without his critics who accused him of sometimes being ‘loose with his facts’.  But for me he serves as the most practical and down to earth antidote to the flashier mouth pieces that now top the guru charts.  A recent Economist article cited 3 criticisms of the modern management guru:

1. Claiming to reinvent the wheel
2. Citing examples of excellence that fail to pass the test of time
3. Focusing on creating a commercial market from a simple business model.  

Drucker instead created the Drucker Institute, acted as an informal adviser to the Girl Scouts; helped inspire the mega-church movement; and the management school that bears his name recruits about a third of its students from outside the business world.  

Drucker himself liked to say that people used the word guru because the word charlatan was so hard to spell.  In that case Mr Drucker you were most certainly not a guru –because you were relevant, and you still are.