Peter F Drucker

Peter F. Drucker, the down-to-earth business thinker who defined the role of management guru, died Friday at his home in Claremont. He was 95. During more than 60 years as an author, professor and consultant to some of America's biggest corporations, Drucker challenged people's thinking about organizations and popularized the notion of the postindustrial "knowledge worker." "Peter could look around corners," philanthropist Eli Broad, who knew Drucker for 30 years, said Friday.

Peter F. Drucker, the down-to-earth business thinker who defined the role of management guru, died Friday at his home in Claremont. He was 95. During more than 60 years as an author, professor and consultant to some of America's biggest corporations, Drucker challenged people's thinking about organizations and popularized the notion of the postindustrial "knowledge worker." "Peter could look around corners," philanthropist Eli Broad, who knew Drucker for 30 years, said Friday.

I take exception to Peter F. Drucker's comments about Balkan peasants in your Oct. 22 story. I came from that part of the world, and was one of those peasants Professor Drucker is referring to. Dear professor, we do not steal! The Balkan population, peasants in particular, suffered a lot during history at the hands of its neighboring countries. We ended up being poor for choosing honesty. In addition, to liken Wall Street traders (and indirectly, Balkan peasants) in the second paragraph to "pigs gorging themselves at the trough" is, to say the least, very vulgar and flagrant.

Peter F. Drucker, author, teacher, consultant to global business and Southern California resident, has just published his 33rd book, "Management Challenges for the 21st Century." Like most of Drucker's books, dating to the 1930s, his latest is filled with thought-provoking observations, grounded in history rather than theory, on major trends in the economy and business.

At the Claremont Graduate School, when they talk about classes in management, invariably they talk about a professor named Peter. But if you were to have a chat with Peter, he might tell you the real apostle was Paul. Paul is Paul A.

Peter F. Drucker, the celebrated observer of corporate America, Wednesday likened Wall Street traders to "Balkan peasants stealing each other's sheep" and said that their lack of restraint made the recent stock market plunge inevitable. "I expected it somewhat earlier," he said, "and not for economic reasons--but for aesthetic and moral reasons. The last two years were just too disgusting a spectacle.

Will Gorbachev survive, and does it matter anyway? In perestroika 's latest episode, U.S. Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney said a week ago that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's attempts to reform his country's economy would lead to his downfall. Cheney's comment was countered somewhat by President Bush, saying he told Gorbachev that we in America want perestroika to succeed and backing that sentiment with an OK for subsidies on grain sales to the Soviet Union.

Peter F. Drucker, author, teacher, consultant to global business and Southern California resident, has just published his 33rd book, "Management Challenges for the 21st Century." Like most of Drucker's books, dating to the 1930s, his latest is filled with thought-provoking observations, grounded in history rather than theory, on major trends in the economy and business.

Among Peter F. Drucker's many virtues is longevity. As a young trainee in the cotton business, he wrote with a quill pen at a firm that used single-entry bookkeeping in giant ledgers chained to the tables. He's also old enough to have lived through both Russian revolutions. He spent the first in Vienna, his hometown. He sat out the latest in a comfortable suburban ranch house in Claremont, the smoggy old college town he lives in now.

As dusk settles on the 1980s, the landscape of the next decade appears eerily unclear. In America, debt and deficits seem out of control. The Soviet Union and China are wavering between openness and anarchy. Japan's high-gear economy must now reckon with political upheaval in Tokyo. National pride is competing fiercely with the forces of economic integration in Western Europe. Latin American economics are unwinding in a downward spiral. Fast money and exotic deal-making are reshaping companies everywhere.

Thirty-five years ago, at the beginning of the counterculture revolution of the 1960s, Abraham Maslow, a renowned humanist psychologist, stumbled across a novel experiment in democratic management. Maslow, who taught at Brandeis University, was on sabbatical at Non-Linear Systems, a technology company in Del Mar, Calif.

Here I sit contemplating this 2-foot pile of new business books, most of them promising to lead me to new heights of achievement at the office if not necessarily to fortune or fame. Books with tiresomely cute titles: "The Mafia Manager," "Sacred Cows Make the Best Burgers." Books with purely tiresome titles: "Taking Charge of Change" and "Reinventing Leadership." Books I'm half-certain I saw a year or two ago under slightly different titles and that I fully expect to see again next year under still others.

Among Peter F. Drucker's many virtues is longevity. As a young trainee in the cotton business, he wrote with a quill pen at a firm that used single-entry bookkeeping in giant ledgers chained to the tables. He's also old enough to have lived through both Russian revolutions. He spent the first in Vienna, his hometown. He sat out the latest in a comfortable suburban ranch house in Claremont, the smoggy old college town he lives in now.

As dusk settles on the 1980s, the landscape of the next decade appears eerily unclear. In America, debt and deficits seem out of control. The Soviet Union and China are wavering between openness and anarchy. Japan's high-gear economy must now reckon with political upheaval in Tokyo. National pride is competing fiercely with the forces of economic integration in Western Europe. Latin American economics are unwinding in a downward spiral. Fast money and exotic deal-making are reshaping companies everywhere.

Will Gorbachev survive, and does it matter anyway? In perestroika 's latest episode, U.S. Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney said a week ago that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's attempts to reform his country's economy would lead to his downfall. Cheney's comment was countered somewhat by President Bush, saying he told Gorbachev that we in America want perestroika to succeed and backing that sentiment with an OK for subsidies on grain sales to the Soviet Union.

At the Claremont Graduate School, when they talk about classes in management, invariably they talk about a professor named Peter. But if you were to have a chat with Peter, he might tell you the real apostle was Paul. Paul is Paul A.

Thirty-five years ago, at the beginning of the counterculture revolution of the 1960s, Abraham Maslow, a renowned humanist psychologist, stumbled across a novel experiment in democratic management. Maslow, who taught at Brandeis University, was on sabbatical at Non-Linear Systems, a technology company in Del Mar, Calif.

I take exception to Peter F. Drucker's comments about Balkan peasants in your Oct. 22 story. I came from that part of the world, and was one of those peasants Professor Drucker is referring to. Dear professor, we do not steal! The Balkan population, peasants in particular, suffered a lot during history at the hands of its neighboring countries. We ended up being poor for choosing honesty. In addition, to liken Wall Street traders (and indirectly, Balkan peasants) in the second paragraph to "pigs gorging themselves at the trough" is, to say the least, very vulgar and flagrant.