Drucker on Asia

For a book whose English language version is less than a year old, The title "Drucker on Asia" has not lasted well. You won't find much here that directly relates to Asia's current crisis of (economics) confidence, immature banks etc. The price for this slim book is also high. All this is a pity because there are various interesting lessons to be discovered in this published conversation between Peter Drucker and the Japanese Retail visionary Isao Nakauchi. One of my favourites has little directly to do with Asia - it stems from this question which Isao sets up for Peter to answer: "How can the individual and especially the individual in knowledge work maintain his or her effectiveness? Drucker replies by doing a few simple things well: 1) Maintain a goal or vision - his own "to keep on striving" means that one matures but does not age. 2) Take the view Phidias took of his own work "the Gods see it". People who take this view are not willing to do work that is only average; they have respect for the integrity of their work; in fact they have self-respect. 3) Build continuous learning into the way you live - Drucker has done this by taking up a new subject to study every 3 years of his life! 4) Like the Jesuits of the 16 century, build a review of your performance into your work. Do this by keeping a record of results/decisions and comparing these with previously enumerated expectations. This teaches you what you are good at and what you're not good at. I question whether these are simple things to do unto yourself, but then Drucker adds one more irresistible experience-based advisory:"Again and again, when I ask effective people to explain their success, I hear that a long-dead teacher or boss challenged them and taught them that whenever one changes one's work, one's position, one's assignment, one thinks through what the new job, the new position, the new assignment requires. Always it requires something different from what the preceding job or the preceding assignment required". I would be delighted to e-mail dilaogue with other readers of this book on favourite learnings. E-mail me at [email protected] - Chris Macrae, editor of MELNET www.brad.ac.uk/branding/ and author of "Brand Chartering Handbook - how brand organisations learn living scripts".