A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

236 ■ A CLASS WITH DRUCKER
consultant, and philosopher. However, this announcement created an additional
issue, which another one of my classmates instantly raised.
Just about every one in the class was a practicing manager. We were perfectly
happy to learn from academics. We respected them for their knowledge
and wanted to gain practical knowledge we could apply. To us,
<strong>Drucker</strong> represented the very best. But most of us didn’t understand anything
about being a professor as work or a profession. There were two reasons
for this. First, there was the old prejudice best expressed by the saying
“those who can do; those who can’t teach.” Of course there have been many
professors, in the past and in our time, who have moved in and out of academia
and “the real world” and done well in both. However, there is one
dictionary definition of the word “academic” that reinforces this prejudice:
“Theoretical or speculative <strong>with</strong>out a practical purpose or intention.”
Secondly, as practicing managers, we all worked in hierarchies. A manager
started at the first rung and worked up from there. We never gave it
much thought that most professors stayed as professors and seemed content
to remain at what we perceived to be an entry level of the academic
hierarchy. Academia had a management hierarchy of department chairs,
deans, provosts, college presidents, and chancellors. If we considered it at
all, many of us would assume that professors should be seeking the same
advancement as we did in corporations or other hierarchical organizations.
So the next question put to Peter by a classmate was not totally unexpected.
It was, “What happened?” In other words, if <strong>Drucker</strong> had been
performing as a dean some years earlier, why wasn’t he now further up the
hierarchical ladder, and not “only” a professor?
Again, Peter responded <strong>with</strong>out being defensive. “I didn’t like being
dean or an administrator as a profession. It wasn’t satisfying. I knew I
would be better as a business teacher, writer, and researcher. I knew what
a dean needed to do to manage properly, but I knew that to spend that
effort was to take time away from what I really liked and was good at, and
where I could make the maximum contribution.”
The Basic Question for Managers
It was clear to me that this got back again to the basic question Peter felt
all managers should ask. As individuals, we first need to decide, “What
business are we in?” Only then could we continue to develop ourselves to
support a particular goal or life profession. Once you answer this question,
there is quite a bit you can do.