Living in More Than One World

Peter Drucker would have appreciated the tone of the essays that comprise Rick Wartzman’s What Would Drucker Do Now? Wartzman writes in the Drucker spirit: tough-minded yet positive and fair, with a dose of good humor. He has been writing “The Drucker Difference” biweekly column for Bloomberg BusinessWeek since 2007, when he became Executive Director of The Drucker Institute, at the time a new entity. (Drucker died at 95 in November, 2005.) This collection shows how Wartzman plays off on topics in the news; generally in business but also politics, technology and other subjects, and relates their relevance to Drucker’s work.

The broad sweep of the material reflects Drucker’s diversity. The first three chapters are management-focused, but the next four are on Wall Street/Finance, Values/Responsibility, the Public and Social Sectors; and one that I find particularly interesting: Art, Music and Sports. In the latter we learn about his mid-1980s brief engagement as a consultant for baseball’s Cleveland Indians, how his teachings have influenced the Grammy-winning ensemble Southwest Chamber Music, and the relevance to his writing on how to cost products to Radiohead’s 2007 pay-as-you-like experiment for the album In Rainbows. Wartzman is particularly tough on executive compensation (a familiar Drucker theme) and the fate of the automakers. Drucker had intimate knowledge of this sector, stretching back to the 1940s and his book about General Motors, Concept of the Corporation.

As I noted in my post about The Drucker Lectures, Wartzman answered questions for a 2 ½ page Q&A in my book, Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life. That the writing in his new collection is so strong is not surprising, given his background as a longtime journalist for The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times, and his work as an author. In particular, he consistently does something that not all journalists/columnists can do: write compelling intros and thought-provoking conclusions. Years from now, people who want an overview of how the business world and society in general unfolded in real time from mid-2007 to early 2011 will find a valuable time capsule in What Would Drucker Do Now?

I returned a few days ago from the 2011 Berrett-Koehler Authors Cooperative Retreat, at the Stillheart Institute, located among the redwoods, not far from San Francisco. Last year, after attending the 2010 retreat, I wrote about the benefits knowledge workers can gain from similar events. Here are some further reflections after this year’s experience:

1. Conferences/conventions vs. retreats. I love conferences, and there are certainly similarities with retreats. But consider the difference in scale between a place like Stillheart (and the locations of the two previous retreats) and a typical large convention center, where you spend a considerable amount of time each day in transit. There are often long waits in line at the lone Starbucks, and limited food choices. At Stillheart, the three communal meals a day were delicious and healthy, and coffee/tea and snacks were always available.

2. A sense of the “other.” Retreats, however structured, get you out of your routine and normal physical settings. Unless you live in or near a redwood forest, you’re not likely to be surrounded by this type of scenery in your daily life.

3. Seeing a different side of friends/colleagues. Each year a highlight has been the Saturday night talent show. I was knocked out by the comedic, singing and musical ability of some of the authors.

4. The element of surprise. Some of the best moments of the retreat came from listening to ideas in different session “threads” that I did not anticipate would be relevant for me. It provided a lesson in the wisdom of suspended judgment.

I am grateful to the BK authors who volunteered their time to organize another wonderful retreat. I’d love to hear other thoughts on the benefits of a retreat, especially from the people who attended this year.

Living in more than one world can be demanding. One of the Peter Drucker-related life lessons I’ve applied is to revise my schedule of activities when new realities demand it. That’s why I am resuming writing my blog, after not blogging since late June.

It’s been a whirlwind summer. Shortly after my presentation at the SLA Annual Conference in Philadelphia came an intensive, six-week teaching semester for the course The Special Library/Information Center, at the Catholic University School of Library and Information Science. The students completed two major papers: a site visit at a Washington, D.C.-area special library, as well as a Virtual SLA project, in which they followed online, after the fact, and reported on the SLA Annual Conference. In one part of the paper, each student had to interview two librarians who had been at the conference, but whom they did not know previously. A major highlight of the course was the 16th Special Libraries Symposium, where a panel of local librarians met with the class and special guests to discuss their career journeys and the state-of-the-art in the profession.

While teaching I was also working on my first complete issue (the forthcoming Winter 2012, which will be out in mid-December) as Managing Editor of Leader to Leader. I’m learning a lot every day and interacting with a whole new set of people within and related to the leadership world. There are many deadlines involved, but I have always prided myself on making them in a timely fashion. In this I agree with Drucker, who once told me that “deadlines are sacred.”

Sadly, the summer also saw the illness, and eventual death, of my 95 year old father, Paul Rosenstein. His funeral, in Scranton, Pa., where I was born and raised, was a deeply moving experience. I will write more in the future about his great, long life.

Now blog writing beckons again. If anyone else had a similar experience of adapting to new schedules, demands and routines this summer, I’d love to hear about it!

It’s been nearly two weeks since I attended the one-day annual conference of American Independent Writers. And it has been more than a week since I’ve returned from presenting at the 2011 SLA Annual Conference in Philadelphia. The ALA Annual Conference is beginning in New Orleans, but I won’t be there this year. I attended last year and in 2009, when I did the first book signing for Living in More Than One World. Professional conferences are great experiences, on many levels. They are a valuable way to learn a lot about a particular discipline in a relatively short period of time. In that spirit, last year I gave a thought exercise to my students at the Catholic University School of Library and Information Science. If you could attend any conference, anywhere, that was outside your professional discipline, but in an area of interest, what would you choose? The trick here is not to get sidetracked by location. Just because a conference happens to be in a city you’d like to visit isn’t a reason for choosing it. Rather, what professional discipline outside of your field would you like to learn more about, enough that you would spend three or four days immersed in it? I think this is a worthy thought process for any knowledge worker. It allows you to consider subjects you are curious about, and gives you the opportunity for checking online to see how those disciplines present their conferences. A quick source of ideas, for academic conferences, is Conference Alerts. Ideally, you are picking a field that is a stretch in terms of your current knowledge and experience. It’s true that this is all speculative, and in reality you are not going to be transported there. But just reading through the conference information online gives you worthwhile information about topics and people important to that subject. And who knows, maybe next year you’ll take a leap of faith and attend the conference on your own?

The SLA 2011 Annual Conference in Philadelphia has been over for two days. Now, for all of us who attended and participated, the hard work starts. The theme was “Future Ready,” and if you made the most of your time, you are better placed to face the future than you were a week ago.  My contribution was Creating Your Future the Peter Drucker Way, a Wednesday morning “Spotlight Session.” There was a sense of coming full circle: a number of people raised their hand when I asked how many had attended Drucker’s keynote at the SLA Annual Conference in Los Angeles in 2002. Although I had to miss this year’s closing keynote speaker, James Kane, I found Sunday’s opening keynote by Thomas Friedman to be highly interesting and relevant for information professionals. I drew a combination of information and inspiration from Friedman and many of the other presenters, including Larry Prusak, Guy St. Clair, James Matarazzo/Toby Pearlstein and Joe Murphy/Scott Brown, whose “60 Apps in 60 Minutes” was a supercharged look at apps that can inform and enrich our personal and professional lives. There was not time to do everything (for instance, I missed the presentation by the always-interesting Stephen Abram) or to talk to everyone. But I still became friends with many interesting people and renewed friendships with others. For the second straight year, people could “virtually” participate. And I  assign the students in The Special Library/Information Center, the class I teach at The Catholic University School of Library Information Science, to monitor the conference online, after the fact, and to interview two people who attended, for one of their major papers. Whether you participate in person or online, or during or after the conference itself, the big takeaways for me are that the future can be bright for information professionals who find the proper mix of the technological and the personal, and who can apply the human touch (including Prusak’s admonition about using good judgment) while taking advantage of relevant tools. All of this is hard work that demands creativity and perseverance. SLA members and other knowledge workers have the important, ongoing task of creating the future, beginning with the actions we take today.

If you are attending the SLA Annual Conference in Philadelphia next week, I hope you’ll consider participating in the session I’ll be presenting on June 15th, from 10:00-11:30 AM, Creating Your Future the Peter Drucker Way. On this post, I’ll provide a sneak preview, and why I think it is important for information professionals to hear this message. I recently wrote a guest post for the Government Info Pro blog, 25 Years of Drucker, discussing Drucker’s role in helping to create my future when I was a library school student in 1986, leading to my 2009 book, Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life.  Chapter 3  is “Creating Your Future,” which begins with the following Drucker quote, from Management: Revised Edition, which I reviewed for USA TODAY in 2008: “The purpose of the work on making the future is not to decide what should be done tomorrow, but what should be done today to have a tomorrow.” He also advised to identify and take advantage of “the future that has already happened.” What are the current trends that affect your professional and personal life, and what are the implications for the future? What can you start doing right now to remain relevant in your workplace and in the profession? Many people are getting close to retirement, or could be downsized, or have their library closed down. You may decide to reinvent your life and career by tapping into your willingness to change, and learning from your existing networks and new ones you can create. Giving this presentation, which will also include my 21 minute video interview with Drucker, conducted seven months to the day before he died, at 95, in 2005, has another special meaning for me. Drucker gave one of the keynotes at the SLA Annual Conference in Los Angeles in 2002, and I interviewed him for a feature story in USA TODAY the night before his address. I’d like to think that he would be pleased that things have come full circle, and that his future-oriented ideas will have another opportunity to influence the lives of SLA members.

The poignant and powerful example of the late Carnegie Mellon University professor Randy Pausch brought considerable attention to the concept of the last lecture. However, relatively few knowledge workers will have the opportunity to make a final, summing up address to a class or audience, let alone one that also turns into a bestselling book. But many of us can deliver a guest lecture at the college or grad school level. It is an activity that has the potential to benefit many people at the same time: the guest lecturer, the regular teacher in the class and the students. It is a great way to share knowledge, and to test-drive a possible career in teaching, either as a full-time professor or as an adjunct. I got my start in the latter at the Catholic University School of Library and Information Science partly as a result of giving a guest lecture in 1995. I’ve taught there once a year since 1996, and as you can see from the syllabus for the course that starts later this month, The Special Library/Information Center, I have a number of guest lecturers scheduled to speak to my class, something I have been doing for many years. All are library and information professionals in the Washington, D.C. area, and a few are even my former students. These lecturers can bring to the class up-to-the-minute knowledge about their area of the profession. They have invariably been generous not only with their time, knowledge and expertise, but also with their willingness to network with students during and after the semester. If you are already teaching, adding guest lecturers broadens what you share with your students, and can provide a valuable opportunity and outlet for local professionals. If you want to do a guest lecture, think about what you’d like to speak about, and how you can add value to a class. Talk to someone who is teaching a subject that would be a good fit. If they are open to having you as a guest lecturer, find out the requirements, and prepare for what could be a life-changing experience.

Recently I was interviewed, via email and in English, by the Brazilian publication Administradores, for a major feature (in Portuguese only) on Peter Drucker. The Portuguese translation of my book, O Legado De Peter Drucker, was published last year in Brazil by Campus Elsevier. The premise of the article was who, if anyone, could be considered to be a successor to Peter Drucker. An idea that came to mind as I thought of my responses was “Drucker as His Own Successor.” I don’t mean that in a flippant way. In the five and a half years since his death at age 95, there has been an explosion of Drucker-related research and writing. We understand so much more about his work, given the many books and articles that have been published since then. We have greater access to his work, with the increased ability to buy even his more obscure book titles online. And of course many of his books are available in digital format, which was, for the most part, not the case during his lifetime. The same goes for online videos. This increased access to his ideas, and ideas inspired by or about him, means that we have more and better ways to apply those ideas in our own life and work.

The Drucker Institute (including the extensive online Drucker Archives) has been the go-to point for Drucker material, and now includes a new monthly radio show, “Drucker on the Dial.” The Drucker-Ito School at Claremont Graduate University remains a vital source of Drucker-related knowledge, and Bernard Jaworski was recently appointed as the Peter F. Drucker Chair in Management and the Liberal Arts. There have also been several issues of professional journals devoted to Drucker-related information, including a robust website from Emerald Insight. The current era cries out for the fundamental first principles in which Drucker excelled. I believe Drucker himself would be proud and pleased at the intense interest in him, and might give at least a small smile and nod to the concept of “Drucker as His Own Successor.”

Jennifer Schuessler’s super-interesting New York Times post, David Foster Wallace, Self-Help Reader inspired several reading journeys based on the work, life and death of the author who committed suicide in 2008. I wrote briefly about Wallace in 2009, wondering about whether I had unknowingly walked by him at Pomona College, in Claremont, California, where he was a professor, when I was in town to research my book.
The self-help angle was what drew me into the NYT post. When I clicked on the link to Inside David Foster Wallace’s Private Self-Help Library, by Maria Bustillos, at The Awl, I expected perhaps a list of some of the self-help books he read. But what I found is a penetrating, extended essay about Wallace’s life, as illuminated by the (annotated and color-highlighted) self-help books in his private collection, which Bustillos examined in their current home, the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. I found what she wrote completely absorbing and well worth the time it takes to read it. And looking at the catalog of the books from his library now at the Ransom Center makes for compulsive browsing, especially discovering those with notations in Wallace’s hand. It also makes you wonder what he – or any writer whose private book collection becomes available for public study – would think, if he could, about people reading notes he scribbled in the margins of those books. Schuessler’s post also led me to Wallace’s 2004 NYT review of a biography of Jorge Luis Borges, Edwin Williamson’s Borges: A Life. In the review, Wallace reveals a lot about the mind of one first-rate writer studying the work of another. Describing Borges’ short stories, he writes: “His stories are inbent and hermetic, with the oblique terror of a game whose rules are unknown and its stakes everything.”

The publication of the new book by Joseph A. Maciariello and Karen E. Linkletter, Drucker’s Lost Art of Management: Peter Drucker’s Timeless Vision For Building Effective Organizations marks a major event in Drucker studies. Maciariello was a longtime professor/colleague and friend of Peter Drucker’s at the Drucker-Ito School. He also coauthored the last three Drucker books: Management: Revised Edition, The Effective Executive in Action and The Daily Drucker. Linkletter was the first archivist at the Drucker Institute (where Maciariello is Director of Research and Academic Director), and is a historian who teaches American Studies at California State University at Fullerton. Although I haven’t finished reading the 456 page book, what I have read is fascinating. The authors explore in detail the roots of Drucker’s thinking that led to his idea of “management as a liberal art,” and his development as a dominant force in modern management.

Considerable added value is provided by their explanations of the people and ideas that influenced Drucker, and then synthesizing many of these ideas to demonstrate their importance in Drucker’s work as a writer, teacher and consultant. So we get, for instance, mini-biographies of Drucker influences such as the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Thorstein Veblen (“The Theory of the Leisure Class”) and many others. There is even a 41 page section on Abraham Lincoln as a case study in leadership in relation to Drucker’s principles.

What I find particularly fascinating about the book is the wealth of material about Drucker in regard to faith, spirituality and religion, and how these areas influenced his work and thinking. Drucker’s books are filled with references to these topics, though as the authors point out, he generally did not make his own religious views a prominent part of his writing or teaching. See in particular their examination of Drucker’s highly personal 1949 essay “The Unfashionable Kierkegaard,” and their background material on Kierkegaard. Although I have not met Linkletter, I have known Maciariello since 2002, when he was the first person I interviewed for my book. For more on his work and relationship with Drucker, see this 2009 interview with Alistair Craven.