Tuesday, February 16, 2010

The End of Economic Man, Chapter 7 (pt 2) Miracle or Mirage

In many ways, this book is filled with themes that cold be important to management even though Drucker is talking about politics at this point. Much of this chapter deals with personifying demons – the problems that bedevil and organization. He notes that people tend to fix blame to a hidden problem in their midst and identify that problem with certain kinds of people. It is clearly a problem in the body politic and it can easily be an issue in corporate life. Old boys. Conservatives. Liberals. Bean Counters. Engineers. Sales staff. Anyone group can be perceived as having too much power and be identified as bringing a special weakness to the group.

The criticisms of the book said that the conclusions were too vague. Drucker wanted to see a new form of society emerge but he does not describe that new society. Hence, the criticisms are not wrong. He is being vague. Yet, it suggests that he is going to approach the management problem as an empiricist. He will likely let the forces of society shape the organization. At the same time, he is clearly approaching these problems as one who understand the broad sweep of Western culture. To him Marx and Calvin represent the same kind of failure.

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