The World According to Peter Drucker

In this superb, slim 186-page volume, the author manages to capture the quintessence of Drucker's life-work on management. Drucker's neo-Weberian sociology, the search for the moral basis of capitalism, the influence of Schumpeter (the renegade Austrian economist), the roles of European intellectual currents, his spiritual underpinnings in Kierkegaard, and the social context of Drucker's thought and development--all are ably portrayed here, in all the richness of their context. Penetrating, insightful and never blinded by adulation, the book is also extremely well written. I read a chapter a night and was done inside a week. There are only 2 blemishes. First, he is a bit skimpy on some biographical details (*when* was Drucker born, for example?). Secondly, what in the world does "elide" mean? Here's the sentence: "...Drucker's bold reinvention of government...elides the cardinal difference between government and business...--democratic accountability." You can't even infer the meaning of this strange word from its context. Before I was even finished, I was able to use information in this book to choose (and purchase) 3 other Drucker classics. And excellent, valuable read--don't miss it.

Jack Beatty creates what he calls an "intellectual portrait" of the world's most highly respected business scholar and teacher. What soon becomes clear, however, is that Drucker is a life-long learner with an insatiable curiosity about many subjects which are wholly unrelated to business per se. The book consists of nine chapters which, together, examine Drucker's multi-dimensional life since his birth in Vienna in 1909. Correctly, Drucker has been described by Warren Bennis as "one of the few thinkers in any discipline who can claim to have changed the world: he is the inventor of privatization, the apostle of a new class of knowledge workers, the champion of management as a serious discipline." It is generally agreed that, until Drucker, the term "management" was not even in the formal nomenclature of business. Today, management consulting is a multi-billion dollar global enterprise which continues to experience ever-increasing growth. Drucker gave that enterprise a definition, a vision, and a rationale as well as many of its basic terms. Beatty neither thinks nor writes as well as Drucker. (Who does?) His "intellectual portrait" is, however, an invaluable supplement to any of Drucker's books and articles. For more than 60 years, Peter Drucker has made a positive and substantial difference in the personal as well as professional lives of so many others throughout the world. With all due respect to Peter Drucker's well-deserved recognition as a scholar of business, that "difference" is his most valuable contribution.

I found this to be a very interesting book with delightful insights into Drucker's career. Beatty does tend to greatly favor Drucker's achievements, and rightly so. A necessary addition for anyone who has Drucker on the bookshelf.

Jack Beatty has taken on a very difficult task here: Capturing the essence of the world's most successful and prolific business thinker and author. I think that he succeeded very well, and certainly added to my understanding of Peter Drucker's writing. Having read many of Drucker's articles and books, I was astonished to find out how many important works I had missed. I appreciate having Jack Beatty open my eyes. In the year since I first read this book, I have read more Drucker than in the last 20 years. This has been a good benefit from THE WORLD ACCORDING TO PETER DRUCKER. I am one of the people mentioned in the book, during the chapter about Professor Drucker's consulting practice, and I found Mr. Beatty has really captured the essence of the man in a way that no other books or articles do. I salute Jack Beatty for having made a great gift to us all, and urge you to buy, read, and use the book to guide your study of Peter Drucker.

Any of us who has read a book by Peter Drucker has benefited from the experience. However, unless we've been around long enough to read each work as it was published and experienced each in its full social and economic context, we've missed something; for Peter Drucker has been carrying on a dialogue with his readers for decades. Jack Beatty's writing provides the reader with that much needed context. Piecing together each of Drucker's works, Beatty gives us a tour of the world that Drucker has been trying to show us. Whether we've actually read any of Drucker's works or not; Beatty shows us the threads of reasoning, and patterns of thought, that have both held constant and continually evolved, for over 50 years. An obvious supporter of Drucker, Beatty doesn't hold back criticism when mistakes are evident; or outcomes less than desired. But in describing Drucker's view of the world, Beatty shows us a view of the man that few would see by reading only selected works out of context. That view of the man, with imperfections and biases, only makes the continuing dialogue more meaningful and useful. Beatty's book about Drucker's world becomes indistinguishable from a book about Drucker. Drawing on the book's closing paragraph regarding the need to be remembered for the differences one has actually made in people's lives; Beatty has painted a picture with which both he and Drucker can be pleased.