Week 18 of 52. Welcome to Drucker Mondays, a 52-week journey through the new book, A Year with Peter Drucker: 52 Weeks of Coaching for Leadership Effectiveness, by Joseph A. Maciariello. Each Monday, we'll feature a Drucker fan and his or her favorite snippet from the week's topic. (Subscribe on this page.) Tim Muret is our guest writer today. (Note: This issue was emailed to subscribers on May 4, 2015, but posted on May 11.)
Week 18: A Major Period of Transition for Society and Individuals
THE BIG IDEA FROM THE BOOK: Peter Drucker, in an address to the advisory board of the Peter F. Drucker Nonprofit Foundation in 1992, said society was facing “a very dangerous time because it is one in which demagogues flourish.” Yet he added, “And it’s a very exciting time because it is also a time which what individuals do, what small and large organizations do, what countries and government do, really matters. So I think this is a very dangerous, a very upsetting, and a very exciting period.” Has anything changed now in 2015? Read on.
TIM MURET'S FAVORITE DRUCKER INSIGHTS from Week 18, pages 139-146:
• “Every few hundred years in Western history there occurs sharp transformation.”
• “Within a few short decades, society rearranges itself—its worldview; its basic values; its social and political structure; its arts; its key institutions. Fifty years later, there is a new world.”
TIM MURET'S COLOR COMMENTARY:
I appreciated Joseph Maciariello’s insightful connection, in this powerful eight-page chapter, between the dramatic changes in the world and need to “Take Responsibility for Your Career.” In a Harvard Business Review interview in May 1993, Drucker noted:
“The stepladder is gone, and there’s not even the implied structure of an industry’s rope ladder. It’s more like vines, and you bring your own machete. You don’t know what you’ll be doing next, or whether you’ll work in a private office or one big amphitheater or even out of your own home. You have to take responsibility for knowing yourself, so you can find the right jobs as you develop and as your family becomes a factor in your values and choices.”
THIS WEEK’S QUOTES & COMMENTARY BY TIM MURET:
Tim Muret is chief communications officers at Open Doors USA, an international ministry that has been supporting persecuted Christians for 60 years. Tim has over 20 years of experience in corporate America and is blessed and honored to be applying his skills to further God’s Kingdom.
TO-DO TODAY:
1) If you’re over 40, you may be unaware of how quickly the decades fly by. For a refresher, visit the Beloit College Mindset List for the Class of 2018—and see what this year’s college freshmen class know and don’t know.
2) Example: “During their initial weeks of kindergarten, they were upset by endlessly repeated images of planes blasting into the World Trade Center.”
NEXT MONDAY:
On May 11, 2015, we will continue this five-week segment on “Navigating a Society in Transition” with Week 19’s topic, “Seeing the Future That Has Already Happened," with color commentary by Rebekah Basinger, Consultant on Fundraising and Board Education, Basinger Consulting.
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