Living in More Than One World

A number of books and articles that I collected over a period of years became important background material for the Peter Drucker-related visit I made to Japan, as I wrote in the previous of (now six) posts about my week in Tokyo.
As helpful as all of that reading material was, I also read a lot of Drucker’s work about Japan, in books and articles, before and especially during my time there. One was Drucker on Asia: A Dialogue Between Peter Drucker and Isao Nakauchi, which I read in the English translation published in 1997. But within that book it notes that the original was published in Japanese in 1995, titled Chosen no toki, as two volumes, by Diamond, Inc., Drucker’s publisher in Japan (and I’m happy to say, mine as well).
The Ecological Vision: Reflections on the American Condition; a 466 page collection of essays with new Drucker introductions, originally published in 1993, was also really valuable. Part Seven is called “Japan as Society and Civilization,” and contains five chapters plus the introduction.
It contains some of his most personal and wide-ranging writing on many aspects of Japanese life, including a 17 page essay, “A View of Japan Through Japanese Art,” which originally appeared in the catalog for a 1979 art exhibit. I particularly enjoyed a Wall Street Journal piece from 1980: “How Westernized Are the Japanese?” It includes a wonderful section about a “twenty-year-old daughter of old friends – we have known her since she was a toddler,” who indignantly tells him that in her philosophy seminar about Plato, the readings were not translated into Japanese. They were in the original Greek. She was also reading Kant and Schopenhauer, in German; along with “Whitehead, Russell, Wittgenstein and Symbolic Logic, in English, of course.” What, Drucker asks her, are you doing for fun? Her reply: “This is fun.” The young student would be 52 now. One wonders what became of her, and the other people in this short, enlightening article in a big, helpful book.

In my previous posts about the 2012 SLA/Special Libraries Association annual conference, I wrote about serendipity and networking, as well as my impromptu conversations with top executives from companies exhibiting at the INFO-EXPO. I also noted that my time in Chicago was somewhat limited, but I feel that I made the most of it. I really enjoyed Guy Kawasaki’s keynote, and finally had the opportunity to meet him briefly in person afterwards. Coincidentally, in my capacity as managing editor of Leader to Leader, I recently edited an article he wrote, Ten Steps to Enchanting Your Employees, for our Summer 2012 issue. And in 2004, I interviewed him on the phone for my USA TODAY review of his book The Art of the Start.
On July 16 I attended two sessions focused on the changing skills and roles of information professionals: Guy St. Clair’s The New Knowledge Services-Next Steps for Career Professionals; and the panel Reinventing Library Skills, moderated by Mary Talley, which included SLA’s incoming President-Elect Deb Hunt. The general vibe I got from both was that while librarians and related information pros should build on their existing skills, talents and experience to create and take advantage of new opportunities; the old days of linear career paths, and larger libraries (yet too often with marginal impact) were in most cases over and never coming back. During the Q&A in Guy St. Clair’s talk, I mentioned that such approaches could lead to a “clean slate effect,” for both individual professionals and organizations.
Both of the competitive intelligence sessions I attended, The Intelligence Café and Cross-Cultural Competitive Intelligence, were invigorating. I got the impression that CI could be a growth area for information professionals who were prepared to think and act in new ways. That’s sound advice for anyone in the profession; whether they are new professionals just out of school, in mid-career or longtime professionals looking for new challenges and opportunities. What differences can we make, individually and collectively, between now, and the 2013 annual conference, next June in San Diego?

This year’s SLA/Special Libraries Association annual conference in Chicago  is now complete. Although attendance appeared to be down from last year, it was still a great experience: a nonstop opportunity for networking and learning. It was also a special occasion for me, as I was honored to receive the Rose L. Vormelker Award “…for exceptional service to the information profession through the education and mentoring of students and working professionals.”
The conference took place in the middle of the semester for the course I teach as an adjunct professor at the Catholic University of America School of Library and Information Science, The Special Library/Information Center. There are two classes (3 hours, 20 minutes each) per week for six weeks; Gretchen Sauvey of the United States Institute of Peace pinch-hit to teach the class for me on Monday, but I left the conference a day early, on Tuesday afternoon, to return to Washington for Wednesday’s class.
There was a nice symmetry to the fact that my co-honoree was Denise Callihan of PPG Industries, in Pittsburgh. We’ve been friends since we met at the 2006 conference in Baltimore, through one of my favorite networking strategies at conferences: intentionally sitting at a lunch table with people I’ve never met before.
SLA conferences are great for serendipity. While standing in the Social Media Lounge, sponsored by ProQuest/Dialog, I watched a brief video about the 2012 Roger K. Summit Scholarship being awarded to Elliott Hauser. It was a conversation between Summit, a legend in the world of information as the founder of Dialog, and Hauser, a Ph.D. student studying information science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Suddenly Summit himself, whom I had not met before, appeared at my side and started talking to me about the video. That’s the kind of unique experience that is all the more satisfying because it can’t be planned.
Along with Summit, I met many other highly interesting people this year at SLA. I will post again soon about my impressions of the conference sessions and the INFO-EXPO.

In my previous post about my recent Peter Drucker-related visit to Tokyo, I wrote about the generous people in Japan and the United States who helped me prepare for my first visit to Japan. I also did a lot of reading about the country in the months leading up to the visit, on the 14 hour airplane flight, and while I was in Tokyo.
Besides the Fodor’s guidebooks/website and tips-about-Tokyo web searching, I finally was able to make use of articles I’d been saving for years about Japan from The Economist and the Financial Times. It was a fitting touch that my hotel had free copies of the Financial Times Asia edition in the lobby. I also enjoyed reading the English-language daily The Japan Times, which appeared each morning on a small shelf outside the hotel room. I found a number of books to be valuable, especially Confucius Lives Next Door: What Living in the East Teaches Us About Living in the West, by T. R. Reid; the former Tokyo bureau chief of the Washington Post. I had earlier read The Japanese Today: Change and Continuity, by Edwin O. Reischauer and Marius B. Jansen. Drucker described Reischauer in 1979 as “the former American ambassador to Japan and the foremost authority on Japanese history and society.” His legacy lives on at The Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard University. Another helpful book was the clearly-written A Traveller’s History of Japan, (4th edition) by Richard Tames; the most recent of the above-mentioned titles, other than the Fodor’s guides.
However, some of the best reading material on Japan, for the purposes of my visit, came from Drucker himself. In my next post, I’ll sketch out some of the articles and sections of books by Drucker that helped me while in Tokyo, and provided valuable guidance as I prepared my presentations.

In the previous entry in a series of posts about my recent Peter Drucker-related visit to Japan,  I wrote about Atsuo Ueda, Drucker’s longtime editor/translator in that country, who supervised the translation of my book. Even though I can’t read the language, I couldn’t resist buying a copy of Mr. Ueda’s new book, Peter F. Drucker Completed Book Guide. It is published by Diamond, Drucker’s longtime publisher, which also published my book.

Among other features, the guide appears to be a summary of each of Drucker’s books, with a beautiful design and the names of each book also in English. Some were different in their Japanese release (such as the multi-volume The Essential Drucker, which originated from a concept developed by Mr. Ueda) and at least one, My Personal History (2005), was not published in the United States. What makes Completed Book Guide particularly worthwhile to own are the thumbnail pictures of each of the book covers in Japan. This is especially true for Drucker’s two novels, The Last of All Possible Worlds (1982) and The Temptation to Do Good (1984).

The guide begins with a 26 page dialogue between Mr. Ueda and Shigesato Itoi. I have to admit I had not heard of Mr. Itoi before, but I’ve discovered that he is quite well known in Japan and beyond for his creative work in many different worlds; such as writing, television, video games and advertising. Given his wide range of talents, accomplishments and interests, it’s not surprising that he should also be associated with Drucker.  I’d love to see an English translation of this dialogue, not to mention the whole book!

Earlier this week I wrote the first in a series of posts about my recent visit to Japan in support of the Japanese edition of my Peter Drucker-related book. As I mentioned, I worked closely with Chikao (Chuck) Ueno, Tomomasa Yagisawa and Joseph Lee, among others. All three were generous and kind to me and my wife, Deborah, during our week in Tokyo. We had personalized introductions to the city that would be hard to get otherwise.
And I was happy to meet the translator of my book, Yasushi Isaka. Chuck introduced him to the American edition when it was published in 2009. He immediately offered to translate it, which happened when Diamond (Drucker’s publisher) bought the translation rights in 2010.  We worked closely via email, but did not meet in person until I spoke at the Drucker Workshop 7th Annual Conference on May 26th, which he helped organize.
That day I also had the privilege of meeting one of the other speakers, Atsuo Ueda. Mr. Ueda was the supervisor for the translation of my book, a real honor for me, given that he was Drucker’s longtime translator and Japanese editor. After his presentation, I met and spoke with him briefly and had we had our picture taken together. Yasushi interviewed Mr. Ueda extensively for a series on Drucker in 2001. You can also find some highly interesting material from Mr. Ueda on the website of the Drucker Archives.
After my presentation (Bruce Rosenstein In Conversation with Joseph Lee), we went to the reception, which was held in another building. I met many interesting people and signed books (both the American and Japanese editions). Another highlight was meeting Natsumi Iwasaki, author of the multi-million selling book (so far only published in Japan), with the title loosely translated of What If a Female Manager of a High School Baseball Team Read Drucker’s ‘Management’? Natsumi has a varied career, and last year joined the Board of Advisors of the Drucker Institute.
My week in Tokyo was quite eventful: stay tuned for the next installment in this series!

Last week I had the honor of visiting Tokyo, to make four presentations related to Peter Drucker, who remains a major influence in Japan. It was my first visit to the country, and a profound experience. This is the first of a series of posts I’ll write about different aspects of my days there.
Everything revolved around my presentation for the Drucker Workshop 7th Annual Conference, at Waseda University, on May 26th. My appearance there was arranged by Chikao (Chuck) Ueno, whom I first met when researching my book at the Drucker-Ito School in Claremont, Cal., in 2007. (The name of the school further shows Drucker’s ties to Japan, with its benefactor Masatoshi Ito, a Japanese business leader.) A Japanese translation of my book was published last year by Diamond, Drucker’s longtime publisher in that country. On May 25th, the night before the major event, Chuck arranged for me to speak to the monthly meeting of an English language study group of Workshop members.
The format of the 5-26 presentation was “Bruce Rosenstein in Conversation with Joseph Lee.” Joseph teaches at both Pepperdine University in  California, as well as Chuo University in Tokyo. On May 29th I spoke to his leadership class at Chuo’s MBA program for a discussion about my book.
The May 24th event was “An Evening with Bruce Rosenstein,” at the Shibuya Cultural Center Owada, in a very cool part of Tokyo. This was arranged by Tomomasa Yagisawa, a Drucker-Ito alum whom I met, like Chuck, in Claremont in 2007.  The other organizer was Katsu Fujita, a Drucker-Ito alum whom I met in person for the first time, although we’ve been in email contact for the last year and a half.
This has just sketched out a few of the basic details of the Tokyo events, and some of the people who made them so memorable. I’ll go into more detail in future posts. I can see why Peter Drucker had so much affection for Japan!

Many notable people will be delivering commencement addresses on campuses across the country this month. But it is worth looking back to May 31, 1964, when Peter Drucker delivered the commencement addresses at the University of Scranton, in Scranton, Pa.  I was born and raised there, and in 2010 I wrote about my return to the city in May of that year, to give a presentation about my book based on Drucker’s work.
The June 1, 1964 edition of The Scranton Times published a transcript of Drucker’s talk, though it is not online. (However, the Drucker Archives has an online photo of his honorary doctorate degree.) While congratulating the all-male graduates – the school began admitting women in 1972 – he reminded them of the responsibility to put their knowledge to work for the benefit of as many people as possible. He said their years of education represented sacrifices from parents and money from taxpayers; and that it wasn’t long before when most people left school at 14 to go to work.  Hopes for a society “free from prejudice” and other injustices depended on these and similar graduates;  “the first generation of the “knowledge revolution” who will have to prove whether we have invested our faith, our resources and our hopes wisely or foolishly.”
Familiar themes from his books of that period were sounded; the change from producing things to knowledge work; the relatively new demand for educated people and how teaching hadn’t changed much in hundreds of years. “But what education and knowledge mean to society, that has changed drastically, and within the lifetime of the older generation still living.”
Drucker said that power and influence should not be used for selfish ends. They and others like them around the country faced “a very much brighter future than young people have ever faced before.” That, however, also brought a considerable challenge: “I hope you will remember that in turn it is your responsibility to put our knowledge and your education to work where they produce the most – for you, for your families, for your society, for your country and for mankind.”

What did Peter Drucker have in common with Bob Dylan and The Beatles? More than you might initially think. All were/are at the top of their fields; all were/are prolific, serious innovators. They also changed their initial styles of expression from their early to more mature work.
Beyond that, there are interesting geographic angles. Drucker, who was born in Vienna, Austria in 1909, began working as a clerk apprentice, and studying law at Hamburg University, in Germany, in 1927. This was a formative time for him, which included being introduced to great works of literature by a local librarian, and also attending the opera on a student ticket to hear what became a life-changing work, Verdi’s Falstaff.  Thirty- three years later, in 1960, The Beatles left Liverpool and did their own apprenticeship in Hamburg; playing grueling hours in the city’s gritty clubs. Their experiences formed the basis for the polished, groundbreaking band they would later become.
Drucker moved to the United States in 1937, and in 1950 began teaching at the Graduate Business School of New York University (now New York University Stern School of Business), an association that would last for two decades. While he was teaching at NYU, Bob Dylan moved from Minnesota to New York City’s Greenwich Village, in 1961. It’s fascinating to think that while Dylan was doing his world-changing work in the 1960s, Drucker was in the same city all along, teaching, consulting and writing some of his most important books, such as The Effective Executive and The Age of Discontinuity. While it’s tempting to think that Dylan and Drucker could have bumped into each other on the streets of the village near the NYU buildings, my understanding is that Drucker’s classes were actually held in the Wall Street area, so it is unlikely their paths crossed. (If anyone knows differently, I’d love to hear about it!)
People will still be reading Drucker’s books, and listening to the music of Dylan and The Beatles far into the future. And none of it would have happened without those early days of apprenticeship and inspiration.

I’m always interested in finding out what makes successful people tick. The recent Fast Company feature Leadership Hall of Fame: Richard Florida, Author of “The Rise of the Creative Class” makes for fascinating reading, on a number of levels. Richard Florida has had a zooming career as an author and professor, built on his profession of urban planning. He is also a blogger with a devoted following. Mediabistro reported recently that he will add to his workload as a Senior Editor at The Atlantic, one of his blogging homes. What particularly struck me in the Fast Company interview is his revelation that two of the biggest influences on his work have been Peter Drucker and Jane Jacobs, the author of the classic The Death and Life of Great American Cities, who was from my home town, Scranton, Pa. “My work hopes to be a synthesis of Jacobs and Drucker,” Florida says. Last year, I blogged about my return to Scranton to speak about my book, Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life. I noted the Drucker connection to the city, his commencement address to the University of Scranton in 1964. Jacobs, who graduated — albeit many years before — from my high school, Scranton Central, died in 2006 at 89. Her work as a critic of cities, neighborhoods and urban planning was successful despite having no academic background in urban planning. Like Drucker, she remained relevant and influential throughout a long life. And similar to him, books continue to be published about her, including one released yesterday, a collection of essays published by the American Planning Association, Reconsidering Jane Jacobs. Another wonderful thing about her legacy is Jane’s Walk USA, including one to be held in Scranton on May 7. The final years of her life were lived in Toronto, where Florida teaches at the Rotman School of Management. In Drucker and Jacobs, he has chosen his professional role models well. Aiming to do work that will live beyond our lifetime is a noble goal.