A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

176 ■ A CLASS WITH DRUCKER
Three Areas of Military Management <strong>Drucker</strong> Recommended
In revisiting <strong>Drucker</strong>’s lectures and our conversations, it was clear to me
that <strong>Drucker</strong> thought military management should be studied by business
and other civilian leaders mainly in these three areas:
■ Training
■ Promotional Systems
■ Leadership
That’s not to say that there weren’t other major aspects of military
management that <strong>Drucker</strong> thought would be good for businesses and
other groups to look at. Only that these areas were the top three. Also,
that it was not that other organizations should copy what the military was
doing in all respects. <strong>Drucker</strong> was no fan of the concept that “business is
war.” He simply thought that other organizations should examine what
was being done by the military and adapt them to what made sense to
their own organizations. Finally, <strong>Drucker</strong> did not mean to give the idea
that military management was perfect and <strong>with</strong>out blemish. He knew
there were always challenges that any organization must constantly work
on to overcome, and he knew the military had shortcomings, despite
what he saw as exemplary.
Military Training
Peter greatly admired the training and the philosophy behind it in our
armed forces. All military training rests on two basic assumptions. These
assumptions go back through the millennia of history to the much
admired Spartans who began training at age seven and continued for
twelve years. Thereafter they required military service of all and trained
year around, as opposed to their adversaries, who began to train only
when threatened or before a campaign.
The first assumptions of the two assumptions is that the harder you
train, the easier the actual military actions would be and the better your
performance. Famed World War II General George S. Patton put it this
way: “A pint of sweat in training is worth a gallon of blood in combat.”
The other basic assumption is that even the lowest ranking private
has the capability of reaching the highest levels of responsibility and
command. The old saying is that “in every private’s knapsack, there is a