A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

12 ■ A CLASS WITH DRUCKER
In all of the classes I took from Peter, he always used a single textbook.
This was Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, an 839-page tome
which he had written several years earlier, the one in which he had written
the material about deciding what “business” you were in. I heard that
in some classes he required no textbooks, only recommended a couple of
books that he had written. That’s right, recommended. He did not require
them, or any textbooks, in these classes.
Anyway, in the courses I took his Management: Tasks, Responsibilities,
Practices was required. It is still in print and selling well today. It’s an outstanding
book. Moreover, this is a regular book, not a textbook in the
usual sense of the word, a fact that was much appreciated by <strong>Drucker</strong>’s students.
I think the book sold for about $20 in those days. This was expensive
for a book, but regular textbooks thirty years ago were priced at more
than twice that. So my one-time cost of $20 or so meant a savings of more
and more money in every course I took <strong>with</strong> him.
Saving money on books, however, was definitely not the reason he had
such a large following. You took the first couple of courses from him because
of his reputation and maybe because it was required. Thereafter, you signed
up for <strong>Drucker</strong> because there was great value in what he had to say.
But, back to his “textbook.” Most professors tend to try to cram an
entire textbook into whatever time period over which the course is conducted.
<strong>Drucker</strong>’s syllabus always covered reasonable amounts of the book,
to digest. He felt that books needed to be “mastered,” not simply skimmed
<strong>with</strong> a host of facts and a few techniques committed to memory. So, he did
not try to assign the entire eight-hundred-plus pages over one seven-week
“module.” The idea was to focus on one section and to master that.
Frankly, my own experience is that few actual textbooks are ever completely
read by students, and certainly not “mastered.” I don’t exclude the
several textbooks of which I am the author. There is simply too much
material for the ten-to-sixteen weeks over which a course is usually taught
at most universities. Moreover, the classes in the executive program at
Claremont were taught in seven-week modules because we had to take
more courses than the regular doctoral students.
If an author attempted to write a textbook which could be read and
understood in the time available, it probably would fail in the marketplace.
This is because it is the professors who make the decision as to
which textbook is adopted. Students might like it, but most professors
would view a 200- or even a 300-page textbook as lacking substance.