Management Challenges for the 21st Century

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calls "business architecture") will have to become part of the executive's toolbox, yet we continue to operate on outdated assumptions about the role and domain of management.Fortunately much recent management thinking explicitly challenges one assumption pulled apart by Drucker: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!

I have been a fan of Drucker's writing for many years. This book does not disappoint. Every chapter, every paragraph, is loaded with insights, and presented as only Drucker can, with clarity and an unmistakable call for action. His chapter on the information revolution (it is not what you think when you think about information technology) and the essay on treating the knowledge worker as an asset for value creation, not just a cost to be controlled and minimized, are a tour de force. Not just for the CEO, great insights for thoughtful leaders at every level. Sit down and read with a highlighter in hand---you will want to highlight the many insights you discover and read them again and again.

Peter Drucker is a master in explaining how organizations work, this book is one of the collection that we should all have

Good overview on general principles. Old-fashioned and unable to apprehend tek era and its profound transformation of the relationship between capital and work

I read Peter Drucker for what he says that is relevant to electronic marketing strategy. His earlier collections, like "Managing in a Time of Great Change," have been foresightful and though-provoking. His latest book mostly revisits previous themes, and otherwise spends too much time on things like the birth rate. If you haven't read Drucker, then this book, like all his work, is well worth it. But if you follow his work, this book won't "change the world" for you.

Bought the book for a class but it turned out to be not a bad book after all

Worth it for the review of the first Information Revolution. Still timely, as the issues Drucker raises have not been resolved. Put simply, we still do not know how to manage knowledge workers, and our tools have improved only slightly in the 18 years since Drucker put this book out.

Simply a great book by the greatest author .. just finishing it and planning to read it again

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.

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

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...

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

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 Productivity21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。