One of my most fulfilling writing opportunities is my monthly contribution to Corporate Learning Network, where I am also a member of the Advisory Board. The intensive study and examination of Peter Drucker’s work is a major focus of this platform, and most, though not all, of what I write about here is Drucker-focused. I’m including below links to my contributions during the past year, along with dates of the posts, and brief excerpts:
Title: Your Self-Directed Peter Drucker-Related Fall 2021 Semester
Date: 9-10-21
Excerpt: Your work on this course will deepen your knowledge of Peter Drucker, but it will also increase your knowledge about the various topics covered during the 12 weeks. You will ideally have learned about new online and print resources, and will have discovered new authors.
You will also have developed more familiarity with your local bookstores and libraries, which will be valuable no matter what you are studying (or just becoming more curious about) in the days and months ahead.
Title: 10 Takeaways From A Day of Drucker
Date: 8-12-21
Excerpt: Peter Drucker consistently attracted deep thinkers and high achievers into his orbit. He learned from them, and vice versa. A Day of Drucker demonstrated what happens when you (virtually) bring these types of people together. Although I was aware of the work of many of the panelists and presenters, a number were new to me. I remain highly impressed by their knowledge, experience and continued contributions, inside and outside of the workplace.
Title: 7 Key Insights on Leading and Learning from Leader to Leader 100
Date: 6-28-21
Excerpt: The futures of learning and leadership are intertwined. That is one of the messages in the special issue number 100 of Leader to Leader (Spring 2021), where I’ve been managing editor since 2011.
This year marks 25 years of publication, and in preparation for writing their articles, we asked authors to consider the future of leadership in the next 25 years. I’ve drawn the following 7 insights from the articles for your learning and leadership journeys in the months and years ahead…
Title: Deepen Your Knowledge of Peter Drucker With This 20 Question Quiz
Date: 5-20-21
Excerpt: On March 30, Drucker School professor Dr. Bernard Jaworski and I presented a Drucker Master Class focusing on Peter Drucker’s teachings on change, innovation, learning and related topics.
For one segment of the Master Class, I devised 10 ‘polling’ questions about Drucker’s life and work as a fun and instructive interaction with the class members.
For this article, I’ve included those questions and added 10 others, in the hopes that taking this quiz will deepen your understanding of Drucker’s life and work, and that you will have fun engaging with the material.
Title: A Master Class on Drucker: The Presenter’s Reflections
Date: 4-8-21
Excerpt: We touched on how Peter Drucker role-modeled qualities needed for 21st century knowledge workers, including intense curiosity, being open-minded and acutely observant.
When dissecting how Drucker sought out information that was harder to find in his day (such as World Bank and government reports) but that are readily available online now, Bernie {Jaworski} made the key point that information that is available to all (even if you have to pay for it) is less actionable than knowledge you’ve developed on your own, simply because it’s less unique if everyone theoretically has access to it.
Within this, Bernie mentioned the commodification of information, and the terms ‘differential intelligence,’ ‘market intelligence’ and ‘asymmetric information.’
Title: 16 Key Insights From Harvard Business Review Press’ ‘Drucker Library’
Date: 3-22-21
Excerpt: Some of Peter Drucker’s most important insights during his lengthy career were published in his articles and essays in publications such as Harvard Business Review, The Economist, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, and Forbes. Many of these pieces were periodically collated into books under various themes.
Last year, Harvard Business Review Press reissued eight of these books (also as an eight-book boxed set), as ‘The Drucker Library.’ The publisher had a collection of the same name a decade ago, with most of the same books, which had originally been published elsewhere.
Title: Top 10 Takeaways From Drucker Days
Date: 2-23-21
Excerpt: 1. Return to first principles. Peter Drucker taught that you can’t successfully move into the future unless you understand your present reality. A powerful statement came during a surprise element in 2017: the unveiling of an eerie and otherworldly “holographic effect” of Drucker speaking about his principles of teaching, consulting and writing about management. In the segment, an interviewer observes that a lot of his principles seem like common sense. “All of it is common sense,” Drucker responds. “That’s why it’s so rare.”
Title: Get Ready For The Spring 2021 Self-Directed Peter Drucker-Related Semester
Date: 1-21-21
Excerpt: As with the Fall Semester, this one should also prove to be a great exercise in finding and evaluating quality information, and turning that information into knowledge.
In order to be as organized and time-saving as possible, keep all of the material together, either in a computer file, or a notebook. That way you’ll be easily able to view your progress, and connect the dots of what you’ve learned week-to-week.
Keep a list of the sources you used (such as titles and authors of books and articles), as well as useful websites.
Title: 7 Mindset Shifts for Thriving Inside and Outside the Workplace in 2021
Date: 12-16-20
Excerpt: 3. Move beyond buzzwords. Besides gratitude, we’ve heard a lot recently about important concepts such as (to name merely a few) communication, innovation, creativity, listening, empathy, psychological safety, and diversity & inclusion. Our challenge in 2021 is to transform these concepts into daily action, and make them part of our regular thinking patterns, so that they go beyond buzzword status into true ways of being and living. Sometimes that means studying these concepts in more depth, by reading books such as in consultant/author La’Wana Harris’ Diversity Beyond Lip Service: A Coaching Guide for Challenging Bias (2019), and Harvard Business School professor/author Amy C. Edmondson’s The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth (2018).
Title: Personal Learning: The Multiple Benefits of Guest Lecturing
Date: 10-28-20
Excerpt: Why would you want to do a guest lecture? A strong one can:
- provide a meaningful way to give back/pay forward to your profession, or area of expertise
- lead to further teaching opportunities
- lead to future career changes or pivots
- help you think about your topic of expertise, and approach it from different angles.
Title: Create Your Own Personal Peter Drucker-Related Semester
Date: 9-16-20
Excerpt: This exercise might also prompt you to pursue more formal learning possibilities, either through universities, community colleges, online learning platforms, industry certifications, workplace learning programs or MOOCs (massive open online courses).
Devising and carrying out an organized self-study program like this will prove that you’re a self-starter who can generate your own momentum. Give yourself extra credit if you decide to study with other people, or to take on a project (work-related or otherwise) based on what you’ve learned. For even more extra credit, apply this format/template to other subjects you’d like to learn about. The possibilities are endless!
I hope that these excerpts will make you want to read the full text of the articles, which are all fairly brief and succinct. And also that they will inspire you to check out the full range of the extensive material CLN regularly publishes on organizational learning, management, and leadership. Continued thanks to CLN’s Mason Stevenson and Christine Sokolowski for their support, as I look forward to another year of writing and insights.