November 19th is management pioneer (now deceased) Peter Drucker’s 100th birthday. To celebrate the life and teachings of this remarkable man, the Drucker Institute hosted a weeklong event, Drucker Week, featuring some of the most respected business academicians (a paradox?) of the world at Claremont University.
Ken Blanchard (author of The One-Minute Manager and Know Can Do!) was there, along with Warren Bennis (author of Judgment), Stephen Covey (author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People), Charles Handy (author of The Gods of Management and Myself and Other More Important Matters, Frances Hesselbein (co-editor of the Drucker Foundation’s three-volume Future Series and Leading Beyond the Walls, and Jim Collins (author of Good to Great)—real heavyweights.
Here is a short account of my experiences attending this notable event:
On Tuesday, November 4th, Ken, Warren, and Charles entertained a downtown Los Angeles crowd at Club Nokia. Ken spoke of the need for the servant leader—someone willing to put himself at the bottom of the organization chart (an upside down pyramid)—to support those closest to the customers. After all, as Peter Drucker said, the only purpose of a business is to create a customer. Continue reading ‘Peter Drucker, Masatoshi Ito, and In-N-Out Burger’









