The Essential Drucker: The Best of Sixty Years of Peter Drucker's Essential Writings on Management (Collins Business Essentials) Paperback – 22 Jul 2008

Peter Drucker has had a truly unique perspective and influence on the development of modern organizational management practices. He is old enough to have known Alfred Sloan of General Motors, and was a studious observer of the rise of the modern corporation, all the way through to its present most advanced state, the post-industrial knowledge-based corporation. Furthermore, Drucker has made major contributions over the decades to management theory and practice, through his books, teaching, consulting, and many articles in publications such as the Harvard Business Review. He has studied a broad span of management topics, from organizational behavior to individual behavior to the impact of organizations and businesses on society. He is even a bit of a futurist. So, who better to have one's life work collected into a single volume, to provide an overview of 20th century management theory?

"The Essential Drucker" (TED) is definitely worth reading, for anyone with a modicum of interest in organizational management. For someone like myself, with a good number of years in business, it served as an excellent refresher course and validated many of my own beliefs about management, and the teachings that I've received through other channels. Drucker's writings are the antithesis of faddish, flaky management theories; he advocates a very solid, non-flashy, heads-down, customer and results focused approach to management that also manages to be humane. There are so many nuggets of wisdom sprinkled throughout TED that I would not be doing justice to the book to highlight only a few of them. One impression that comes across strongly, reading thoughts that Drucker put to paper decades ago, is just how true and applicable they are today.

Having heaped much praise on Drucker and TED, I'm obligated to point out the book's major flaw, which is a function of the way it was put together. Drucker has produced so much writing on so many topics that it is perhaps an impossible task to condense the highlights into a single volume, and still retain anything close to the full force of his arguments. Reading TED, it appears that what most often was edited out (but not always, to be fair) was the evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) in support of his theories. You still get the theories and the declarative statements, but what is often missing is the supporting evidence and examples of the application of the theories, to provide a proper context. A veteran manager can supply these from one's own personal experience, as I was often able to do, but I feel that inexperienced readers, such as the students who Drucker claims are part of the target audience for TED, might struggle with the book.

Given that Drucker and his editor decided to make a single volume rather than two or three, TED is a worthwhile summary of a lifetime's work from a great management thinker, and a decent overall survey of 20th century management theory and practices.

While leading a team of several dozen consultants, I have spent the last 14 years providing management and business consulting to industry and government, so I am exposed to many management teachings and have practical need to apply these teachings. I consider this my favorite compendium of management and leadership in my library. Reading his original writings on management by objective was humbling. I expect few people question Mr. Drucker's effectiveness or credibility, rather the effectiveness of this compendium. To this, I have read the book cover to cover and felt every topic was addressed with at least enough completeness to offer redeaming artifacts. In many cases, enough concept is covered to allow the reader to build a comprehensive perspective. While I fully annotated my copy, a reader will have little problem finding specific concepts. BTW, I give copies to my newly minted managers.

Just like I remember him and all in one book. If you're a Drucker fan, or just want to study him, this is the resource for you.

This is an excellent book to source the wisdom of Peter Drucker. He isn't only the father of modern business philosophy, he wrote, eloquently about politics and self-development as well. This little book condenses some of his finer points in one book. He is probably one of the most quoted business consultants and writers of the past three generations and if you haven't read his work, you have no doubt read someone else books or columns that has emulated Drucker.

Tom Peters - In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies (Collins Business Essentials),The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue EXCELLENCE

Seth Godin - Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?,Purple Cow, New Edition: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable--Includes new bonus chapter,

Jim Collins - Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great,

Forbes - How Capitalism Will Save Us: Why Free People and Free Markets Are the Best Answer in Today's Economy

All of these writers, thinkers and business consultants owe a debt to Peter Drucker.

One of the best Drucker quotes from this book, "The purpose of a business is to create a customer," He was the first to identify critical principles in management, economics, politics, and the world in general.

One of the more popular principles we have read in FastCompany to Forbes is "Management by Objectives and Self-Control" ("Each manager, from the 'big boss' down to the production foreman or the chief clerk, needs clearly spelled-out objectives"

So if you're like me you like to know the history behind current trends. This book will give you perspective on where current business pontiffs source their work, where business leadership was and should be, and most important why we are in such an economic mess. Peter Drucker would have made an excellent President, Secretary of State, Commerce Secretary, or Secretary of the Interior.

A lot of the material seems common sense, but there’s a lot of wisdom in the way these practices and ways of thinking are codified that I hadn’t realized utile reading.