A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

196 ■ A CLASS WITH DRUCKER
Again, many hands were raised. The Management Control Panel was
clearly a concept of high interest, and many students were eager to participate
in the give-and-take.
The answers to this question were essentially what I had come up <strong>with</strong>
on my own. Of course, the more inputs that were included, the more complex
the system and the more costly. But considering the benefits offered,
the Management Control Panel had everything to recommend it. By class
consensus, it was worth the price irrespective of cost.
One student added, however, that such a system, delineating the
actions that management was to take and leaving only implementation,
eliminated much of management’s decision-making, responsibility, and
present duties. Peter nodded his agreement, but did not respond further to
this statement.
<strong>Drucker</strong>’s Analysis of the Management Control Panel
Peter now paused before going on. “Earlier someone asked me whether
the Management Control Panel was something that I developed for one of
my consulting clients. I deferred from answering, but I will answer now.
Not only was the Management Control Panel not something that I proposed
or developed, it was an idea suggested by a client which I opposed
until the idea was finally dropped.”
Several sighs of amazement were heard from the class. Most of us were
surprised, to say the least. We had thought the concept brilliant. “Why?
What was wrong <strong>with</strong> it?” one of the students asked.
“The Management Control Panel is not a good concept because it is
unworkable. No matter how many inputs, there are always additional factors
which cannot be included and cannot be quantified in any given situation.
These factors might be the personality of one or more of the prime
executives, recent experience, either good or bad, or even the weather on
a given day. A single factor, sometimes differing only slightly, can cause
entirely different results from those intended. It doesn’t take much, and
most of these factors are random and unpredictable. Therefore, the results
of such a system must be unreliable and misleading.
“This is what differentiates the instrument panel of an aircraft from that
anticipated <strong>with</strong> the Management Control Panel,” <strong>Drucker</strong> explained. “It is
not that inputs may not be equally reliable in an aircraft, although they usually
are. However, the number of relevant inputs for nature and machinery
is always much less than for human beings combined <strong>with</strong> nature and