The Essential Drucker summary

Here’s a little parable you may have heard. Three stonecutters are busy cutting stones for a cathedral. When asked what they’re doing, the first says he’s earning a living. The second says he’s busy being the best stonecutter in his county. The third stonecutter, however, being a visionary, says “I’m building a cathedral.” 

For ambitious objectives, you should hire people like the third stonecutter. These people are able to see the big picture. An organization’s purpose and objectives guide managers in setting priorities, but it’s the people they hire that will ultimately carry out its vision. Recruiting the right people is crucial to any manager’s job. 

So, once you’ve assembled your team, how do you embed innovation into the system to ensure it thrives? This requires entrepreneurship, a crucial aspect that’s often hard to instill into established businesses or nonprofits.

To be entrepreneurial, established organizations require structures that propel innovation. Businesses that want to be the best offer competitive compensation and instill policies that motivate people to create for the company long-term.

Bell Laboratories knew it had created something ground-breaking when it invented the transistor in 1947, but people at the company felt the revolutionary device’s time had not come. So, in the 1950s, when Sony asked to license the technology from them for a paltry $25,000, they snapped up the deal.

This was a massive win for Sony, who then used the transistor to make their portable radios, turning the company into one of the biggest electronics manufacturers in the world. What Sony did was discover a new use for an old technology. This is just one of a number of entrepreneurial strategies that organizations have at their disposal.

Consider this: Innovators in Sweden sold more matchboxes than anyone in the world for almost half a century. How? By taking advantage of a clever yet simple innovation: They discovered they could place an equal number of matches in each matchbox. They then found a way to fill these matchboxes automatically.

You, too, can increase innovation by analyzing opportunities, unexpected successes, processes, industry changes, demographics, new knowledge, and shifting perceptions. You can create simple, intuitive solutions with answers so obvious everyone thinks they could have come up with them.

How do you manage a person who has found autonomy through a special skill or unique knowledge?

The demands on the modern day worker are different from what they used to be. Manual laborers focus on efficiency – doing things right. Knowledge workers must be effective – doing the right things – rather than just being efficient. They take the responsibility of managing their time and directing themselves. This means they need guidance and collaboration, rather than close supervision.

Albert Einstein finished his best work before the age of 40. It can be hard to live a fulfilling life after so much action. Today, many leaders are outliving the very organizations they’ve helped build. Avoiding boredom or crisis in the second half of life has become a worthy task, and it’s one that requires long-term planning.

Some leaders and managers start completely new careers to keep applying their skills where they can achieve more social impact. They move from business to healthcare, education, philanthropy or something similar where the need is urgent and the challenge is obvious. Others study new fields like law in order to focus on serving their communities.