A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

THE OBJECTIVE OF MARKETING ■ 97
Although I had actually been practicing marketing for some time, I
didn’t know it. I had only the vaguest notion of the discipline, or even that
it was a discipline. My bachelor’s degree in engineering from West Point
included no marketing courses. My MBA from the University of Chicago
<strong>with</strong> a specialty in research and development management likewise included
no marketing courses.
While working for Israel Aircraft Industries in Israel, I had traveled to
Germany and participated in the annual Hannover Air Show. I was given
some business cards which identified me as “Chief Sales Engineer.”
However, my actual duties were to answer questions about and show off
Israel’s home-designed Arava STOL (short take-off and landing) aircraft to
interested parties and direct potential buyers to the real decision makers
representing the company at the air show.
As manager of research and development, I was primarily in charge of
developing new products, but I also engaged in both marketing and selling,
although I didn’t realize it. If anyone had asked me if I was doing any
marketing while there, I probably would have denied it.
I recall that the president of one of the companies I had interviewed
<strong>with</strong> before I accepted that job had called back to ask whether I would be
interested in a senior position in marketing instead of research and development.
I told him that I didn’t even know what marketing was. This
didn’t stop him from pressing me further on this issue. I guess he realized
that marketing could become closer to some of my interests than I realized
at the time.
“Marketing isn’t selling,” he said. “Oh, right,” I thought, but I did not
verbalize this as a comment. In any case, my impressions were that he was
trying to direct my interests towards marketing, but I wasn’t interested. I
only half listened to what he said. When he had finished, I thanked him
but told him that I would only consider a position managing research and
development. That offer eventually came from his company, but I had
declined and accepted an offer from elsewhere.
<strong>Drucker</strong>’s Lecture on Marketing
When Peter told us he was going to discuss marketing, I wasn’t particularly
interested, either. I still thought marketing was the same as selling.
Anyway, I didn’t much care, so I didn’t take time to even consider the difference.
Somehow it was a concept I had missed in my attempt to educate
myself about business through my off-duty reading of business books.