A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

BASE YOUR STRATEGY ON THE SITUATION ■ 207
been predicted from an analysis of our dependency on foreign oil over
which we had little control.
<strong>Drucker</strong> knew that risk could not be avoided. Risk was certain. There
were unknowns in every situation, and the precise future was a mystery.
He felt that these unknowns could best be dealt <strong>with</strong> and minimized by
first deciding what a corporation wanted to do and then setting out to
do it—that is, creating one’s future (see Chapter 11). Therefore, one had
to plan ahead and then take the actions necessary to achieve the desired
goals. Of course, major threats should be identified, along <strong>with</strong> some
alternative strategies should any of these threats occur. That might have
been done by American companies in planning for stiffer competition
from all foreign cars, those coming from Japan and elsewhere. Of course,
it was not.
So, Peter’s method must have started <strong>with</strong> an analysis of the situation
in the marketplace and identifying what he called certainties, or factors
that we could not control that would be faced.
In addition to analyzing the environment as one class of “certainty” variables,
Peter also looked at the company and its resources on hand or those
it could obtain at the particular time needed. Since this was only partly
under control of the strategist, this would actually be considered a “certainty”
and consideration would have been necessary as a reality check.
Could the company reasonably attain its objectives given the resources it
had at its disposal?
Strategic Solutions
How did <strong>Drucker</strong> come up <strong>with</strong> highly creative strategic solutions which
were so simple, yet so powerful? By his own admission, he brought not his
specific knowledge of a company or industry to bear, but his ignorance. So
he must have had some means of quickly determining the strategy to
employ to achieve the objectives desired.
Many observers noticed his ability to cut through an unbelievably complicated
strategic situation to get right to the heart of the matter and
drive listening executives, through questions, to what the organization
should do to reach its objectives. I believe that he could only have been
able to do this <strong>with</strong> basic principles which he employed in every strategic
situation he encountered. <strong>Drucker</strong> never articulated strategic principles
in the classroom, and he may not have been aware of exactly what
he was doing himself, but there is no other explanation. As I indicated