A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

14 ■ A CLASS WITH DRUCKER
author Tom Peters once wrote: “<strong>Drucker</strong> effectively by-passed the intellectual
establishment. So it’s not surprising that they hated his guts.” 1
In November 1984, when Peter turned 75, The Los Angeles Times did a
special report devoted entirely to him and his accomplishments. They
asked a few well-known academic writers, including Rosabeth Moss Kanter
from the Harvard Business School and Warren Bennis from the University
of Southern California, what they had learned from Peter <strong>Drucker</strong> and
what they thought that he had contributed to the management discipline.
As I recall, this list included Tom Peters, who while not an academic,
had co-authored the mega-best seller, In Search of Excellence.
All wrote short pieces extolling Peter’s accomplishments and wishing him
a Happy Birthday.
However, one writer used this public forum for praising <strong>Drucker</strong> to
show his disdain instead. This was a professor who had authored a bestselling
book a few years earlier which set off what became a well-known
management fad, but he was basically an academic researcher in the traditional
sense. His contribution to this special Los Angeles Times tribute was
something to the effect that he really couldn’t comment as he had never
read <strong>Drucker</strong>, since <strong>Drucker</strong>, he said, didn’t publish in scientific journals.
Peter really didn’t care. Those kinds of criticisms never bothered him.
He went on his own way as an academic rebel and made major contributions
which frequently challenged conventional wisdom, were not based
on quantitative studies, and significantly changed management and how it
was practiced.
<strong>Drucker</strong> invariably did what he thought was right. For example, each
of his courses required several short papers. Though he might have sixty
students, he graded every single paper himself. He never once used a
teaching assistant to grade for him. I might have “Too glib,” or “Now I am
more confused than ever,” scribbled across a paper, which I had thought
was pretty good. However, if this happened, it was written by <strong>Drucker</strong>
himself, and not some graduate assistant who was assigned to help him
grade papers. Except in 2003–2005, when I taught at an online university
whose official policy it was to have graduate assistants and subordinate
professors grade all except doctoral papers, I did my own grading. And
since my students have also complained about being unable to decipher
my comments, I may have acquired this habit from Peter. First of all, I
always thought it was right, but also I thought, “If Peter <strong>Drucker</strong> can do
it, so can I.”