PETER DRUCKER, the father of modern management, while teaching and writing here in Claremont, observed that “every
single social and global issue of our day is a business opportunity in disguise — just waiting for the innovation, the pragmatism, and the strategic capacity of great companies to aim higher.” Building a sustainable planet was just the kind of societal challenge — and business opportunity — that Drucker had in mind.
Here at the school where Peter made his home for 35 years, we are advancing his work and that of others in a values oriented approach to management
education that emphasizes sustainability, innovation, responsibility and results.
This spring we co-sponsored with the Henry Kravis Institute at Claremont McKenna College a conference on social entrepreneurship which featured
a number of the leading sustainability pioneers, including Peter Thum of Ethos Water and Jeff Mendelsohn of New Leaf
Paper.
As I write this short note, we’re awaiting a guest in my spring CEO Forum class, Iqbal Quadir, the founder of GrameenPhone and now the Legatum Center for Technology, Innovation and
Development at MIT who is unlocking business acumen tied to technological invention and social purpose to bring economic prosperity and sustainable
business to emerging and marginalized nations around the world — profitably!
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Earlier this year, we awarded the Drucker Award for Nonprofit innovation to Kick-Start International, a remarkably successful NGO that harnesses simple technology with self-empowerment and that is bringing sustainable — and profitable — farming practices to Africa.
We have new courses, new faculty,
and new programs sprouting here at
Drucker. We’re planting the seeds for a new generation of risk-takers who intend to do good while doing well, and who seek to repair, reuse, renew, recycle and restore the earth as they create needed and profitable products and services.
This year we celebrate the 100th
anniversary of Peter Drucker’s birth.
Our Drucker Centennial Committee is
co-chaired by AG Lafley, CEO of Procter and Gamble, which itself is pioneering new approaches to sustainable business practices; Jim Collins, who documents the path to sustainability in many of his books, including Good to Great and Built to Last; and Rick Warren, who uses the pulpit to advance the cause of
sustainability, bringing a spiritual and
theological underpinning to the case for sustainable business practices.
We have a large and active Net Impact chapter. We’re extremely proud of our case competition team that competed against 85 other major business schools at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado in February and
came home with first place honors
and the $6,000 winner’s prize in the
sustainability competition —beating out the University of North Carolina in the finals, after eliminating MIT, Harvard, |
Kellogg and Stanford, among others.
I sometimes call Drucker “the little engine that could.” We’re small and intimate and pretty low key. But we’re surprisingly high-powered, aspirational, innovative and relevant. We pride ourselves on the quality of our teaching (our faculty is ranked #5 by Princeton Review) and the intellectual productivity of our professors. We are a first-mover
in PRiME (Principles of Responsible
Management Education, a worldwide
consortium of business schools that
supports the UN Global Compact and its commitment to advancing sustainable business practices), and we are at the forefront of a movement to focus on management as a liberal art. We very consciously want our graduates to be effective managers, ethical leaders, and responsible stewards.
I welcome your interest in what we
call The Drucker Difference and
encourage you to check us out at
www.drucker.cgu.edu. Or stop by and visit us in this lovely city of trees and Ph.Ds here in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, where I’m told you can ski in the morning and surf in the afternoon. I haven’t found time to do either, so if you visit a class, drop by my office, if you like. Or take a tour of the remarkable Claremont Colleges — the Southern California equivalent of Oxford.
This is a great place to learn, reflect,
revitalize and prepare to create what
the world needs now: sustainable
businesses that address societal needs in responsible and profitable ways. |
