The death of management consultant Peter Drucker two weeks ago has given rise to commemorative articles around the world. But China has produced some of the worst columns about this most outstanding management guru, which can bring only distress. To my dismay, in some leading business newspapers published in Shanghai and Beijing, Chinese columnists have depicted the deceased man in a poor light. One piece spent time on Drucker's alleged ability to somehow connect, in a way only vaguely explained, with both John Maynard Keynes, the architect of post-Great Depression economic policies in the West, and Joseph Schumpeter, an Austrian economist two men who taught him more than 60 years ago. Another piece went so far as to assert that one has to learn "36 basic hypotheses," as summarized by Abraham Maslow, a psychologist who died in 1970, before one can "correctly understand and utilize the principles for management" of the guru (meaning Drucker). A third piece surprised readers by claiming in its headline, printed in bold characters, that Drucker's "essential legacy" is "empirical research." Drucker himself said his teaching had a "major emphasis on non-quantifiable areas" and "qualitative skills" in understanding the limitations of numbers. But these words are printed on page 180 of the book The Daily Drucker, edited by Peter F. Drucker with Joseph A Maciariello, published by HarperCollins in 2004. I tend to think of Peter Drucker as a man who always attached importance to practice, albeit the informed sort, and always seemed one step ahead and ready to lend a torch to every manager who wanted to take on a new challenge. By dropping so many old names and making so many complicated twists about his ideas, Chinese columnists have generally presented Peter Drucker as an ordinary ivory-tower scholar, or even worse, an exotic magician. Obviously, these writers have read little about Drucker and can't really appreciate his help for those who do business or manage any team. I guess they were only writing about their own image of a college professor, or what a Confucian scholar of the Song or Ming dynasty was like. Perhaps, they do not know what research is supposed to be, other than cutting itself off from other people's everyday life and setting different schools of thought against each other. Or perhaps they know no way to define what a thinker should be, other than by using language that other people don't use. These writers are making a major mistake. Worse still, they are doing a disservice by preventing those who may find Drucker's ideas useful from getting to know him well. They are turning him into something like a stone statue, under which people lay flowers and then quickly walk away. Which Chinese manager, especially farmers-turned-industrialists, would seek help from ideas that supposedly require them to learn about Keynes, Schumpeter and Maslow, and that are based essentially on empirical research? In order to help my readers know Drucker better, let me tell you about his contributions. They are: Management education is a waste of time unless it is for people with some experience. Management is important for all social institutions private, public and non-profit. Management should lay "far more emphasis" on areas ranging from government, society, history, to the political process. And management teachers should be able to discern what the real challenges are. Judging from the ridiculous interpretations of Drucker produced in the Chinese press, which I guess were all written by individuals with the guts to claim authority on the issue of management, it reflects a much larger crisis than simply how to accurately reflect his legacy. How can the nation continue to make progress in building its enterprises and social institutions, one could ask, when its managers read such "management science?" Email: younuo@chinadaily.com.cn (China Daily 11/28/2005 page4)
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