The Cranky Middle Manager Show #312 The Future of the MBA Ken Starkey
The Cranky Middle Manager Show #178 Inside Drucker’s Brain- Jeffrey Krames
Posted on 03. Feb, 2009 by Wayne in General, Podcast
Cranky Middle Manager Wayne Turmel talks to Jeffrey Krames about his book Inside Drucker’s Brain. Peter Drucker helped turn management into a discipline… and this may be the most important Cranky show of the year. Also we take a look at an Arab historian, because that’s how we roll. Oh, and there’s a cranky webinar coming up on February 26th…
Jeffrey Krames takes us “Inside Drucker’s Brain”. This takes you inside mine:
Show Notes
0:00 This is maybe the most important show we’ve done in ages. Why? Because you have to know where you came from in order to understand why things are what they are. Whether you’re a standup comic or a management geek. That’s why this show is dedicated to Ibn Abddel-Hakem. How did your company get where it is????
3:46 Join us for a free Cranky Middle Manager Webinar- “Managing Virtual Teams- Using Webmeetings to Keep Them Engaged” you’ll find the time well spent.
4:24 The quote of the week, of course, is from Peter Drucker. (It helps to imagine it said with a thick Austrian accent).
5:00 Management wouldn’t be management without Peter Drucker. Management as a business discipline didn’t exist until after the Second World War. The first modern management book: The Concept of the Corporation…. save yourself the trouble….
8:00 The building of the pyramids was the greatest management feat ever- so what do you mean management didn’t exist.? There was no literature on it until Drucker started to put it together. HP and GE are just two companies that really used his work to put their strategy together, but not at first. No one wanted to talk about management.
12:08 What was it about Drucker’s work that was so new? Really, it was the very idea of “management strategy”….but strategy was for war and politics. Most of what we think of as “strategic management” or “management by objectives” is pure Drucker. Remind me to circle back with Jeffrey and find out how HIS review went…. Jack Welch, Bill Gates and Andy Grove are all devotees.
16:23 The notion that “knowledge workers” are different than assembly line workers shouldn’t have been a surprise, but Drucker was the first to use the term. The idea that we can learn from education rather than apprenticeship was (believe it or not) radical.
19:43 Austrian accent aside, his work was really focused on the people side of business, as opposed to Skinner, Mayo and and their ilk. He understood the decentralized workforce and knew if you empower people, they will do a better job.
22:30 Drucker was no fan of computers (The computer is a moron) but he understood and came to embrace IT….heavy on the “I”, light on the “T”. He was all about getting the right information into the hands of managers so they can make good decisions.
26:00 Here’s what managers need to know… Drucker was no fan of academic business learning, but he loved training and personal development. When you realize how much we take for granted that he was the first to say, it’s amazing. He was ahead of Marcus Buckingham and “Strengths” by about 30 years.
32:00 How often do I tell you to go out and buy a book? Well Inside Drucker’s Brain is one, the other is from Todd and Jack at 800 CEO Read’s “100 Best Business Books of All Time”. (Hear their interview here) You can click on the link and buy them:
You can read more in Jeffrey’s Blog as well.
Don’t let the weasels get you down!!!!
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