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The Drucker Centennial is
Upon Us!
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By IRA A. JACKSON
Dean of the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University
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I’m jotting this note off as I fly to Seoul for an important Drucker Centennial Celebration hosted by the Drucker Society of Korea.
There, I will join Drucker Institute Board Member Minglo Shao (Chairman of Bright China Holdings and the Peter F. Drucker Academy in China), Member of Korean Congress Kook-Hyun Moon (former Drucker Institute Board Member and CEO of Yuhan-Kimberly), Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient and Drucker School Board Member Frances Hesselbein, Dr. Hermann Simon, Prof. Ikujiro Nonaka (Distinguished Drucker Scholar-in-Residence), and Drucker Institute Executive Director Rick Wartzman, among others, in celebrating Peter’s life and legacy. The theme of this Centennial Conference is “Drucker Solutions: Keys to Responsible High Performing Society.” Hats off to our good friends Drucker Institute Board Member Seung-Woo Nam (Chairman of Pulmuone) and Prof. Young-Chul Chang for organizing this impressive convening, the first of many around the world to advance Peter Drucker’s principles and practices as we mark the 100th anniversary of his birth.
Similar Drucker Centennial Celebrations are planned in China (Hong Kong, Shanghai, Nanchang and Nanjing), Japan, Brazil (Sao Paulo), New York City, and Vienna (Drucker Society of Vienna Page) – as well as a week-long series of activities at the Drucker School and Drucker Institute here in Claremont, California. Doris Drucker will bring greetings via video to Korea and will attend the festivities here in Claremont and Vienna in November. Professors Philip Kotler and C.K. Pralahad, along with former Drucker Scholar Charles Handy, will address the conference in Vienna, which is co-sponsored by EFMD and spearheaded by long-time Drucker disciple Richard Straub. We are so grateful to our Drucker Centennial Committee chairs, including AG Lafley (Chairman and CEO of P&G), David Gergen (CNN), Jim Collins (Good to Great), Pastor Rick Warren, Wendy Kopp (founder of Teach for America), Drucker School Board of Visitors Chair John Bachmann and Drucker Institute Board Chair Bob Buford for helping to guide these activities and for participating in various ways to our efforts around the world. To a person, we feel that Drucker is needed now more than ever. (For more information about how you might engage with us during the Drucker Centennial, go to http://www.drucker100.com/ or contact me directly).
We’re experiencing what is called “June Gloom” here in Claremont these days, where it is otherwise sunny and just gorgeous, framed as we are by the San Gabriel Mountains in this lovely little city of trees and PhDs. Despite the dark skies above, the feeling here at Drucker is decidedly upbeat and positive, driven by a sense of momentum on many fronts. Let me try to capture the spirit here at Drucker by simply citing a few other examples of progress. (For a regular infusion of this energy, and to stay current with late-breaking events and activities at the Drucker School and Drucker Institute, visit our website, www.drucker.cgu.edu.
Last month, CGU Trustees approved the promotion of Associate Professor Craig Pearce to full Professor with Tenure. This is a huge vote of confidence and a recognition of Craig’s extraordinary research, talented teaching, and generous service and citizenship here at the Drucker School. Craig has emerged as one of the pioneering scholars in the field of shared or distributed leadership and his publications are having impact in both the academy and in the world of practice. A hearty congratulations to Professor Craig Pearce, who also happens to be a nice guy, a vigorous farmer, and an avid hunter! Just this week, along with Prof. Chuck Manz, Craig was leading 30 EMP and MBA students in a three-day, intensive seminar on shared leadership up at Big Bear Mountain, where an improvised jazz band served as the focal point for insights about how groups come together, how responsibilities get distributed, and how peak performance is achieved.
Speaking of Drucker faculty, Assistant Prof. Jenny Darroch is coming out with a new book in time for the Drucker Centennial this fall, entitled Marketing in Turbulent Times. Associate Prof. James Wallace will be showcasing a new approach to values-oriented accounting in his book, Value-Based Management with Corporate Social Responsibility, which Jim Collins describes as putting “the focus on creating long-term shareholder value rather than maximizing share price for those who seek a quick flip.” Prof. Jean Lipman-Blumen offers insights about “the valuable inconvenience of leadership,” and other advice to new graduates in a recent article at The Huffington Post which I also recommend, (Jean Lipman-Blumen Article Link). Thanks to the generous support of Drucker Institute Board Member and former ServiceMaster CEO Bill Pollard, Prof. Joe Maciariello is working on a major monograph on “Management as a Liberal Art,” which will be of interest to management and liberal arts educators around the world and the focus of a conference of business school deans and program administrators that we will host next year. Prof. Vijay Sathe presented research that he and Drucker PhD graduate Michael Crook (former CEO of Patagonia) have done about the emergence of the organic cotton sector, at the Global Forum of Business as an Agent of World Benefit, organized by our close colleague Prof. David Cooperrider of Case Western University around the theme of “management as design” (where I also had the privilege of joining other business school deans in addressing the challenges of managing for the future). (World Benefit Case Western Global-Forum Page). And all of us on the faculty have contributed chapters to a new book slated for publication this fall (by McGraw-Hill) that captures the essence of our unique gateway course that all students are required to take, entitled simply The Drucker Difference.
The last time I wrote to you, I was on my way to Tokyo to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Ito Foundation and the 85th birthday of Masatoshi Ito. It was a privilege for me to join 400 others in celebrating the enormous contributions of this great and humble man, who built from scratch the largest retail network in Asia. Masatoshi Ito is sometimes referred to as the Sam Walton of Japan, and his business career is truly remarkable. He and Peter Drucker enjoyed a close thirty-three year friendship, which lives on proudly in the name of our school – the Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management – the only business school in the world named for both a thinker and a doer. Mr. Ito put Peter’s principles into practice and he continues to inspire us to link theory with reality, to be both value and values driven, and to summon our students and graduates to do good while doing well. I had the pleasure of presenting Mr. Ito a special gift from Doris Drucker: Peter’s walking stick from when he and Doris climbed Mt. Fuji in 1962, inscribed with a plaque that reads, “The Drucker-Ito friendship lives on, inspiring others to climb new heights of responsible management, ethical leadership and social responsibility.” We are thrilled that Mr. and Mrs. Ito will join us at our Drucker Centennial festivities here in Claremont the first week in November.
I welcome all of you to do the same. We will have world-class speakers like Warren Bennis and Ken Blanchard and Charles Handy. We will offer tasty morsels from the research of our faculty and mini-versions of our cutting-edge courses in areas such as personal revitalization, institutional innovation, and corporate governance. We will celebrate Peter’s life through art and we will enjoy one another’s company in informal and fun-filled events that bring back alumni and friends of Peter’s through the years.
I encourage you to take this time to explore Drucker and to engage with us. Meet our amazing student NetImpact team that recently won the national sustainability case competition. Sit in on guest lectures, as many of you did this past spring when we hosted Meg Whitman (eBay), Scott Cook (Intuit), Arkadi Kuhlmann (ING Direct), William Wang (founder of Vizio), Gillian Zucker (CEO of Auto Club Speedway), and Iqbal Quadir (founder of GrameenPhone and the Legatum Center at MIT). Discover for yourself the Drucker Difference.
As we continue to recover from the deep global recession and as we attempt to learn the lessons of what went wrong and why, our mission here at the Drucker School takes on more urgent relevance than ever before. As we recommit ourselves to making this the Drucker Century, I encourage you to join us in advancing the cause of effective management, ethical leadership and social responsibility. This is our time. Please join us – lending your time, your talent, your treasure – sending us your best students, hiring our fabulous graduates, auditing a course as part of your continuing education, or making a modest financial contribution to support our efforts going forward. As Peter said, “the best way to predict the future is to create it.” Please join us as we help to create the future, together, during this Drucker Centennial Year.
Best wishes.
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