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Peter F. Drucker

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MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES for the 21st Century Kindle Edition

by Peter F. Drucker (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.5 135 ratings

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Peter F. Drucker discusses how the new paradigms of management have changed and will continue to change our basic assumptions about the practices and principles of management. Forward-looking and forward-thinking, Management Challenges for the 21st Century combines the broad knowledge, wide practical experience, profound insight, sharp analysis, and enlightened common sense that are the essence of Drucker's writings and "landmarks of the managerial profession." --Harvard Business Review

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224 pages
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English
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HarperCollins e-books
Publication date

13 Oct. 2009
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689 KB
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Amazon Review

No single person has influenced the course of business in the 20th century as much as Peter Drucker. He practically invented management as a discipline in the 1950s, elevating it from an ignored, even despised, profession into a necessary institution that "reflects the basic spirit of the modern age." Now, in Management Challenges for the 21st Century, Drucker looks at the profound social and economic changes occurring today and considers how management--not government or free markets--should orientate itself to address these new realities.

Drucker sees the period we're living in as one of "PROFOUND TRANSITION--and the changes are more radical perhaps than even those that ushered in the 'Second Industrial Revolution' of the middle of the 19th century, or the structural changes triggered by the Great Depression and the Second World War". In the midst of all this change, he contends, there are five social and political certainties that will shape business strategy in the not-too-distant future: the collapsing birthrate in the developed world; shifts in distribution of disposable income; a redefinition of corporate performance; global competitiveness; and the growing incongruence between economic and political reality. Drucker then looks at requirements for leadership ("One cannot manage change. One can only be ahead of it"), the characteristics of the "new information revolution" (one should focus on the meaning of information, not the technology that collects it), productivity of the knowledge worker (unlike manual workers, knowledge workers must be seen as capital assets, not costs), and finally the responsibilities that knowledge workers must assume in managing themselves and their careers.

Drucker's writing career spans eight decades and the years have only served to sharpen his insight and perspective in a way that makes most other management texts seem derivative. While Management Challenges for the 21st Century is no quick aeroplane read, it is a wise and thought-provoking book that will both challenge and inspire the diligent reader. This book is for people who care about their businesses and careers in the information age- -CEOs, managers, and knowledge workers. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards, Amazon.com

Review

"His breadth of vision, his internationalism and his sober realism combine to make analysis of the present and prediction about the future gripping" - The Economist

"The most enduring management thinker of our time" - Business Week

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B000FC12PK
Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperCollins e-books; 1st edition (13 Oct. 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 689 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 224 pages

Best Sellers Rank: 787,158 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 397 in MBA Reference & Education
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- 741 in HR & Personnel Management

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4.5 135 ratings

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Peter F. Drucker

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Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) was considered the top management thinker of his time. He authored over 25 books, with his first, The End of Economic Man published in 1939. His ideas have had an enormous impact on shaping the modern corporation. One of his most famous disciples alive today is Jack Welch. He was a teacher, philosopher, reporter and consultant.

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Fernando Sousa

A genius

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 August 2017

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It is impressive how someone can stay update for such a long time and, most of all, able to make predictions that are confirmed in the future. Drucker is timeless and always rewarding reading. It is true that, sometimes, he shows a bit of arrogance, but this is a little sin for such an intelligence

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Alexa 87

Management Challenges for the 21st Century

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 October 2012

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Realy good book if you want to understand how the economic world works at a glimpse. I use it in my Leading and manageing within Organizations module but if can be additional reading for everybody who want to get a new perspective.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 12 September 2016

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Great product would recommend to anyone!

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San Patch

Penetrating Insights from the Master Management Philosopher

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 24 May 2008

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I was introduced to Peter Drucker by my brother, who is a student of organisational behaviour. Like any engineering student I approached Drucker's thought with skepticism because I believed that organizations and human behaviour, unlike the laws of nature, are so complex that they do not lend themselves to the glib deterministic rules that management theorists propound. The thoughts of Peter Drucker, as expounded in this book, are prescient, apt and broad-ranging to address today's management challenges.

This book is not so much a list of do's and don'ts of management or organisational theory as it is Drucker's reflections on some of the challenges that workers in developed countries shall face in the next half century. He takes on six issues arranged in six different chapters. The first five chapters deal with the issues that shall determine organizational strategies such as:

- The declining birth rate in the developed world: This will have tremendous social and political consequences, as it is without precedent in the modern era. Therefore, organisations' strategy must take demographics into account
- Global competitiveness: No institution, whether business or NGO can succeed unless it measures up to the leaders in its field, anywhere in the world. It shall no longer be possible to base a business or countries' success on the availability of cheap labour.
- Distribution of disposable income : businesses will have to base their strategy on their knowledge of, and adaption to the changes in, disposable income

In the last chapter, which is to my mind the most perceptive, Professor Drucker shares his thoughts on the productivity of the knowledge worker and the increased importance of managing oneself. He argues that, just as the improvement in the productivity of the manual industrial worker was the key to emergence and wealth of the developed West and East Asia in the 20th century, the improvement of the productivity of the knowledge worker will be pivotal in the 21st century if the West is to maintain its economic position. He observes that the knowledge worker will have to manage him/herself in the future instead of waiting for the human resources department of his/her organisation. He also argues that, in order to perform at their best, knowledge workers must know themselves and to plan for the second half of their lives (due to longer life expectancies) by asking the following questions:

- Who am I? What are my strengths?
- How do I perform?
- In what organisation do I belong? What is my contribution?

The message in the last chapter hit close to home. As one in the early stages of a knowledge career, I found Drucker's thoughts to be perspicacious, clear and penetrating.

One small snag though: I thought his writing was clear - most of the time. Sometimes, whole words were written in capital letters. Perhaps, he did this to emphasize the importance of the idea under discussion. However, the effect was to put me off. I thought it was a bit rude to SHOUT at the reader. I am sure that most people who take the time to read Professor Drucker's works need not be shouted at. Professor Drucker also argued that the retirement would be raised to 79 from the current 65 in most Western countries. My thoughts while reading that chapter were, "What would the strike-happy French railway workers think about that one?"

In conclusion, the book is a mine of ideas on the future of organisations and knowledge workers in the developed world. I found it to be a stimulating and engaging read. It deserves my 4 stars.

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Amazon Customer

Look ahead and act to transform challenges in opportunities

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 October 2002

This is the invitation made by Peter F. Drucker in his book: Management challenges for the 21st century. The author writes: "Reading this book will upset and disturb a good many people, as writing it disturbed me" and "It is a very different book from the one I originally envisaged". These two sentences explain that the pressure of the future is so already with us that ideas coming to the author had difficulties to organize on the paper. But this stressing environment gives one of the best book of Peter F. Drucker with issues not to be ignored by knowledge-workers and executives who will have to work on them to make sure to be among the leaders of tomorrow.
In the 2 first chapters, we are sharing ideas from the Management's assumptions, which are no more valid in the "New Economy" to The New Certainties on which very few organizations and very few executives are working on and are invited to a call for action in front of a period of a profound transition.
In Chapter 3, Peter F. Drucker is describing, the Change leader, which mission will not be to manage change, because it is not possible to manage change, but to be ahead of it. Different recommendations are given, but the more important one is piloting the change to permanently test reality. If making the future is highly risky, it is less risky than not trying to make it in a period of upheavals, such as the one we are living in.
In chapter 4, the author convinces us that IT Information Technology has to move from the T to the I. That means that Technology as such is not the concern of executives when Information is. It is true that executives did not get always, with the Information Technologies Revolution, the Information they need for acting. But Information requires also to move from internal information to external Information, because strategy is mainly based on the last one. Information being the key resource for knowledge workers asks to be organized at individual and group level to anticipate and avoid surprises in front of significant events and to prepare for action.
In chapter 5, after discovering that the main contribution of management in the 20th century was the fifty-fold increase of productivity of the manual-worker in manufacturing, we are presented the challenge for the 21st century as being the increase of knowledge-worker productivity. The move there is from quantity measurement to quality measurement of an agreed defined task of a knowledge-worker, which is part of a growing population in developed countries. Knowledge-workers, owning their means of production, the knowledge between their ears, are becoming assets instead of costs. And if costs need to be controlled and reduced, assets need to be made to grow. This means a change of attitude of management but also of corporation governance who have to find balance between the interests of shareholders and knowledge-workers contributing to the wealth of the organization.
In the final chapter, we are presented the impact of all previous evolutions on the individual knowledge-worker, who will have to manage himself in this new environment. This is a real revolution in mentalities due to two new realities: workers are likely to outlive organizations, and the knowledge worker has mobility the manual-worker did not have. Partnership is becoming an answer to these changes with all the consequences for the individual who has to ask himself: "what should be my contribution" and "where and how can I have results that make a difference", yes a real revolution already there.
Management Challenges for the 21st Century is giving the basics to enter the period of profound transition we know with the arrival of the "New Economy" and will make the difference for the people who read this book. We really have to thank Peter F. Drucker for this important contribution at the age of 90, a masterpiece after more than sixty years devoted to management development.

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Dr.UttamReddy Gudipaty

Managing Oneself

Reviewed in India on 10 April 2019

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A must read for understanding and Managing Oneself, Peter F Drucker provides insights on how it is very important to understand oneself to manage people and organisations better.

One person found this helpful

Peter Vandevivere

Peter Drucker - helpful to maintain a strategic viewpoint

Reviewed in France on 23 December 2016

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This is the first Peter Drucker book I've ever read, it will not be the last...
Though the writer insist that he makes no predictions, a lot of the trends he indicates are remarkably visible now, 17 years later...

One person found this helpful

Jac

Delivered on Time

Reviewed in Germany on 14 July 2014

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I was only worried if they would take weeks to deliver. But got it within a weeks time. So I am happy.

スイート・サイエンス

大いなる変動の世紀にどのように対応すべきか

Reviewed in Japan on 6 February 2011

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21世紀を目前に書かれた本書は、21世紀がどのような時代になるのか、そしてどのように対応していくのかを我々に示唆してくれる。但しハウツー本のように、具体的に取るべきアクションが書かれているわけではないので、ドラッカーが提示してくれた方向性や考え方を踏まえて、何をすべきかを自ら考える必要がある。

本書（英語版）は200ページ弱と分量はさほど多くない。その中に6つの章が含まれている。従って一つの章は約40ページ弱と短いが、どれも読み応えがある。自分なりにそれぞれの章で印象に残った部分を記載すると以下の通りになる。

第1章 Management's New Paradigms
経営学において常識と考えられていた7つの事項が誤りであることを解説する。どれも興味深いが、例えばTechnologies and End-Users Are Fixed and Givenでは、ある企業・業種に必要な技術は従来は自ら研究開発していたが、21世紀においては全く別の業種の企業が新しい解決手段を提供する時代になっており、人々のニーズを満たす手段も多様化して多業種がそれを提供する時代になったことが説明されている。これは思い当たることが多々ある。例えば発電事業においては伝統的な火力・水力・原子力に加えて、太陽光や風力など多岐にわたる手段が他業種から提供されていることがよい事例だと思う。思いもよらぬ異業種が競争相手になる大変な時代に突入しているのだ。

第2章 Strategy - The New Certainties
ここでは21世紀において戦略を立てる際に、押さえておくべき以下の5つのCertaintiesについて説明される。出生率の低下を最初に持ってくるところは慧眼だし、2の可処分所得の分配先の異動に関する説明も実に面白かった。
1. The Collapsing Birthrate in the Developed World.
2. Shifts in the Distribution of Disposable Income.
3. Defining Performances.
4. Global Competitiveness.
5. The Growing Incongruence Between Economic Globalization and Political Splintering.

第3章 The Change Leader
冒頭の"One cannot manage change. One can only be ahead of it."は有名な一節であるが、激動の時代において変化の先取りするものだけが生き残れること、そのためにどのような組織・戦略が必要かを熱く語っており、短いが必読の章だ。

第4章　Information Challenges
本章は読み物としても面白い。グーテンベルクの印刷革命を引き合いにして、IT革命において従来はT(Technology）に焦点が当たっていたが、今後はTは当たり前となり、これを前提としたI（Information）が重要となることが語られている。

第5章　Knowledge-Worker Productivity
21世紀においてはManual-WorkerではなくKnowledge-Workerの生産性が企業の競争力を決めることが熱く語られる。"knowledge-worker productivity requires that the knowledge worker is both seen and treated as an asset rather than a cost."や"Knowledge workers have to have autonomy, and that entails responsibility."など示唆に富んだ言葉が並ぶ。

第6章　Managing Oneself
この章も必読だ。自分自身の強みを知り、それを伸ばして組織に貢献する必要があること、そのためにはどのようにすればよいかが具体的に書かれている。また企業の寿命（平均30年）より一人の人間の労働する年数（50年）の方が長いので、第2の人生の準備をしておく必要があるとういう部分も説得力があった。

繰り返しになるが、何れの章も短いが内容は非常に濃い。2度読み返したが、何度も手に取る価値がある一冊だ。

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Max More

A beautiful management mind!

Reviewed in the United States on 10 October 2003

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Peter Drucker has a beautiful mind, forever fresh and overflowing with innovative thoughts. This book, published just as the master of management began his tenth decade of life, shows him at his perpetual best. The text carries with it the sweeping knowledge, deep experience, and astute analysis that a reader might expect from Drucker at this point in his life. But you will find no timid conservatism, no holding on to safe ground here. Drucker has made a lifelong habit of leading the way in business thought and this book confirms that he just can't help himself.
In contrast to the typical business book which is 200 pages too long, every chapter and every page of Management Challenges for the 21st Century relentlessly tweaks the noses of bad assumptions while focusing our attention on the future. Drucker pulls together diverse trends and forces to map out the truly new management challenges. His first chapter, "Management's New Paradigms" argues that organizations (or what ManyWorlds calls "business architecture") will have to become part of the executive's toolbox, yet we continue to operate on outdated assumptions about the role and domain of management.
Fortunately much recent management thinking explicitly challenges one assumption pulled apart by Drucker: The idea that the inside of the organization is the domain of management. This assumption, says Drucker, "explains the otherwise totally incomprehensible distinction between management and entrepreneurship". These are two aspects of the same task. Management without entrepreneurship (and vice versa) cannot survive in a world where every organization must be "designed for change as the norm and to create change rather than react to it."
Although Drucker is intent on uprooting old certainties and focusing organizations on constant change, he does not leave the reader without a compass. In the second chapter, "Strategy-The New Certainties", Drucker says that strategy allows an organization to be "purposefully opportunistic" and explains five certainties around we can shape our strategy. While other writers have addressed a couple of these, too little attention has been paid to some of the inevitabilities analyzed here, including the collapsing birthrate, shifts in the distribution of disposable income, and the growing incongruence between economic globalization and political splintering.
The book's third chapter, "The Change Leader", gives Drucker's unique perspective on the need for 21st organizations to be change leaders. "One cannot *manage* change. One can only be ahead of it." Change leaders have four qualities. They create policies to make the future which means not only continual improvement but *organized abandonment* - a practice still almost unknown in practice. Contrary to typical company reactions, change leaders will starve problems and feed opportunities. For Drucker this means, in part, having a policy of systematic innovation and - in tune with recent calls for new budgetary practices - having two separate budgets to ensure that the future-creating budget is not stopped off in difficult times.
Strong as the first chapters are, I found the other chapters of this book even more incisive. The reader may come away with the sense that many of Drucker's points are obvious, but will realize that they only *became* obvious after hearing them. In his chapter on "Information Challenges", Drucker gives his own, historically-rich, controversial, and provocative take on our current information revolution - the fourth such revolution, he says).
The man who coined the term "knowledge worker" has no shortage of fresh thoughts in the chapter on "Knowledge-Worker Productivity", and has profoundly important things to say in the final chapter on "Managing Oneself". Management Challenges for the 21st Century is, of course, essential reading for aspiring manager-entrepreneurs in these confusing times. As for aspiring business writers, I can only say: Read it and weep!

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