A Class with Drucker - Headway | Work on yourself

DRUCKER IN THE CLASSROOM ■ 15
<strong>Class</strong> Begins
Everyone knew when <strong>Drucker</strong> was ready to begin. He always wore a jacket
and tie. The jacket would come off. He would roll his sleeves up. Then,
the tie would come off or be loosened and he would begin.
The first day of class, he would offer to autograph his book for anyone
who wanted. “You’ll probably get more money for it autographed when
you sell it,” he often quipped. This was a joke. I suppose it happened, but
I never knew of a student to sell <strong>Drucker</strong>’s book.
I wasn’t comfortable taking the time to have him autograph the book
until the second class I had <strong>with</strong> him. I was still a bit uncomfortable.
“What do you want me to write, Bill?” he asked. My discomfort in interacting
<strong>with</strong> famous people, coupled <strong>with</strong> an abominable sense of humor,
frequently appears out of nowhere in such situations and leads me astray.
And so, middle-aged smartass that I was, I answered, “Just write: ‘To Bill
Cohen, to whom I owe everything.’” He didn’t pause but wrote something.
For a moment, I wondered whether he had actually followed my
irreverent request. Alas, he wrote only “To Bill Cohen, <strong>with</strong> best regards,
Peter F. <strong>Drucker</strong>.”
Peter’s modus operandi in teaching was straight out of his birthplace,
Vienna, Austria, from where he had fled the Nazis: He lectured. As to the
subject, we rarely knew what to expect, even for a first class of the term.
Peter did not waste a lot of explaining what the class would be about and
doing class introductions. Syllabi were typically distributed when we
signed up for the course, but not by him.
Peter did not rely on notes for his lectures, either. He would begin
speaking on a topic he considered important that applied to the class subject
matter. He would continue unless interrupted by a question or he
decided to ask a question of his own. As his thoughts unfurled, depending
on the events or the weather, his lectures might go anywhere. They frequently
went off in unexpected directions, and yielded valuable lessons
like unearthed diamonds. These gems might surprise and delight, or could
even bore his students on the rare occasions that the topic he selected was
perceived as less interesting.
In answering a question he might go off in an unexpected direction
which seemingly had nothing to do <strong>with</strong> the question asked. Before you
knew it, he was giving a lecture <strong>with</strong>in a lecture. You might think that this
was due to some sort of professorial absentmindedness. However, if you
stayed <strong>with</strong> him, and sometimes it took as long as an hour, he would sud-