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Do you want to engage in a serious discussion about the purpose of business and the roles of leaders and managers? Do you want to expand your understanding by studying the ideas of the great business thinker, Peter Drucker?
No scholar or professor of management has been more important or had a greater impact on the world of global business and leadership than the late Peter Drucker. Unfortunately, many businesspeople, even with advanced degrees, have not had enough exposure to Drucker’s thinking.
Discussion leader Gary Hoover started reading Drucker’s many books over fifty years ago, then went on to a career selecting stocks on Wall Street, working in management at two large retail companies, starting several companies in Austin, and now writing and teaching the lessons of business history and entrepreneurial thinking. Few people combine Gary’s exposure to different industries, a historical perspective, a scholarly approach to the issues, and a lifetime of practicing business and management. These attributes make Gary the ideal person to lead a weekly Drucker study group.
For each of eight 90-minute weekly Zoom sessions on Tuesday nights, at 7 PM CDT, until 8:30, from April 19 through June 7, Gary will lead a discussion of each week’s readings and topics from Drucker’s most important work, as listed below.
How do these ideas relate to today’s world? How can you use them in your own business and life? Where do you agree with Drucker, where do you disagree?
This class will be limited to nine participants, in order to give everyone the chance to ask questions and relate Drucker’s teachings to their current or future endeavors.
The audio and video recordings of each session will be available to all participants for later reference and review.
The full 8-week course has a list price of $799, with an early bird price of $499 if you enroll by midnight, March 31. Click here to register.
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Course Outline
Required reading: the original edition of Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices
By Peter F. Drucker (1974, 1985, or 1993 releases)
Paperback available on Amazon here or Hardcover here.
We will read about 300 pages of the 800-page book, covering the key ideas.
Course participants are encouraged to read more of this book and his other books.
Based on the success of this class, we may offer future Drucker study groups to cover more of this book and Drucker’s other books, as well as other management thinkers.
Class One Management April 19
Pages 1-36 plus Preface, 38 pages required reading
- Preface: The Alternative to Tyranny
- Introduction: From Management Boom to Management Performance
- 1. The Emergence of Management
- 2. The Management Boom and Its Lessons
- 3. The New Challenges
Class Two What is a Business? April 26
Pages 39-73, 35 pages
- Part 1. The Tasks
- 4. The Dimensions of Management
- Business Performance
- 5. Managing a Business: The Sears Story
- 6. What Is a Business?
Class Three Mission and Purpose May 3
Pages 74-102, 29 pages
- 7. Business Purpose and Business Mission
- 8. The Power and Purpose of Objectives: The Marks & Spencer Story and Its Lessons
Class Four Strategy May 10
Pages 103-129, 27 pages
- 9. Strategies, Objectives, Priorities, and Work Assignments
- 10. Strategic Planning: The Entrepreneurial Skill
Class Five Service Institutions May 17
Pages 131-166, 36 pages
- Performance in the Service Institution
- 11. The Multi-Institutional Society
- 12. Why Service Institutions Do Not Perform
- 13. The Exceptions and Their Lessons
- 14. Managing Service Institutions for Performance
Class Six Work and Workers May 24
Pages 168-197, 30 pages
- Productive Work and Achieving Worker
- 15. The New Realities
- 16. What We Know (and Don’t Know) About Work, Working, and Worker
Class Seven Success Stories and People as Greatest Asset May 31
Pages 246-265 and 300-311, 32 pages
- 20. Success Stories: Japan, Zeiss, IBM
- 23. “People Are Our Greatest Asset”
Class Eight Management, Social Responsibility, Business and Government June 7
Pages 313-375, 63 pages
- Social Impacts and Social Responsibilities
- 24. Management and the Quality of Life
- 25. Social Impacts and Social Problems
- 26. The Limits of Social Responsibility
- 27. Business and Government
- 28. Primum Non Nocere: The Ethics of Responsibility
I hope you can join this small group discussion of Drucker’s important ideas!
Sign up before the course is sold out!
Gary Hoover
