Week 45 of 52. Welcome to Drucker Mondays, a 52-week journey through the book, A Year with Peter Drucker: 52 Weeks of Coaching for Leadership Effectiveness, by Joseph A. Maciariello. Each Monday, we feature a Drucker fan and his or her favorite snippet from the week's topic. (Subscribe on this page.) Steve Brown is our guest writer today.
Week 45: The Power of Purpose--Rick Warren on Peter Drucker
THE BIG IDEA FROM THE BOOK: At the heart of Drucker’s entire management system is every organization’s need for a “theory of business” (THOB) that specifies the mission or what Rick Warren reframes for non-profits as purpose. “Purpose-driven missions can provide vision, lead to higher morale, promote concentration, and provide the basis for a system of evaluation.” (p. 352)
STEVE BROWN'S FAVORITE DRUCKER INSIGHTS from Week 45, pages 350-356:
• “If the organization has assembled the right competencies to fulfill its mission, it then needs to align members up and down the organization, using effective communications.” (p. 351)
• “One thing Peter taught is that charisma is extremely dangerous…So you don’t want a personality-driven organization; you want a purpose driven organization.” (p. 351)
• “’Concentrate on the smallest number of activities that will focus on the greatest productivity.’ If you want your life to count, if you want your organization to count, the secret is to focus. Do a few things well.” (p. 352)
• “…the theory (purpose or mission) of a business is a discipline.” (p. 354)
STEVE BROWN'S COLOR COMMENTARY:
One year ago [at Arrow Leadership] we began a three-year organizational strategic planning process. We were soon lost in the “trees” of tactical planning and needed to step back to look at the “forest”—our purpose.
One key discovery was that we were blurring our purpose and our core program together. In response, we affirmed that our core program is a primary means to our purpose but not the end purpose in itself. This was clarifying and freeing for our strategic planning process. Though testing our purpose against reality and asking hard new questions has required the very discipline Drucker writes about, the effort has sharpened our purpose and strategic plan.
THIS WEEK'S QUOTES & COMMENTARY BY STEVE BROWN:
Dr. Steve A. Brown serves as president of Arrow Leadership which seeks to develop Christian leaders who are "led more by Jesus, lead more like Jesus and lead more to Jesus". Steve is also the author of Leading Me: Eight Key Practices for a Christian Leader's Most Important Assignment, Great Questions for Leading Well, and a regular e-resource, Sharpening Leaders. Follow Steve on Twitter: @LeadwithSteve
TO-DO TODAY:
Take some balcony time to answer Peter Drucker’s key question, “What is my mission? What is my business?” When we stop asking and testing this fundamental question, we can quickly get into trouble.
Read Bob Buford's Halftime: Moving from Success to Significance (20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition), with a foreword by Jim Collins (published this month with more than 750,000 previously sold).
NEXT MONDAY:
On Nov. 16, 2015, watch for Rick Bee's color commentary on Week 46’s topic, “The Stewardship of Affluence and the Stewardship of Influence” the third chapter in the book’s final section, “Character and Legacy.”
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