Every year on April 11, I post on social media the 4 minute trailer of my Peter Drucker interview video. I conducted the interview with him on April 11, 2005 in Claremont, California; at what is now the Drucker Institute, on the campus of the Drucker School of Management (itself part of Claremont Graduate University). I was in Claremont to do interviews with him and others for what four years later became my first book, Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker’s Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life.
The death last month at 72 of Cornelis A. “Kees” De Kluyver, former dean of the Lundquist College of Business at the University of Oregon, brought something into stark relief for me: many of the people I saw or interviewed that week have passed away since then. Kees was the Dean of the Drucker School during the first years I conducted research in Claremont (2002, 2003, and 2005). He was always kind and helpful in keeping me informed about developments in the Drucker world, and especially about who else was conducting Drucker-related scholarship.
Of the people I interviewed in that memorable week, Peter Drucker himself was first to die, six months to the day of our interview, on November 11, 2005, at 95; eight days before he would have turned 96. Drucker’s wife of 68 years, Doris Drucker, whom I interviewed on April 12, 2005 at the Drucker home (along with another interview of Peter), died at 103 in 2014. I wrote about her at the time in the post “Doris Drucker: A Remarkable Life.”
Joseph A. Maciariello, Peter’s longtime friend and teaching colleague at the Drucker School, was the first person I interviewed for my book, during my first visit to Claremont in late 2002. Although I almost certainly met with him in April 2005, we did not do a formal interview that week. Joe, whom I was to meet with at every available opportunity during subsequent visits to campus, passed away at 78 in 2020. I considered him a generous friend, and wrote a tribute to his life and work, “Taking the “Eternal View”: Remembering Joseph A. Maciariello.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, psychologist and famed author of Flow, who was then teaching at the Drucker School, passed away at 87 on October 20 of last year. I interviewed him at his faculty office as background for my book a couple of days after meeting with Peter and Doris. Last November 30, I wrote about him: “26 Curated Resources on the Life and Death of Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.”
There have been other deaths of people in the Drucker ecosphere in recent years. One of the most significant was Peter’s longtime friend and associate Bob Buford, author of Drucker & Me, at 78 in April 2018. I interviewed and wrote about Bob in Living in More Than One World, and referred to him several times in my second book, Create Your Future the Peter Drucker Way (2013). Bob was generous to me with his time and insights, which I noted in my tribute post “The Meaningful Life of Bob Buford: Friend, Associate and Chronicler of Peter Drucker.”
I’ve written several other tribute posts after the deaths of key Drucker associates: “The “Deeper Sense of Purpose” of T. George Harris, a Collaborator and Friend of Peter Drucker,” in 2017, four years after Harris’s death; “Max De Pree, Peter Drucker and the Art of Leadership,” also in 2017; and “Remembering John E. Flaherty and Tony Bonaparte, Friends and Associates of Peter Drucker,” in 2018. Flaherty died in 2016, and Bonaparte in 2014.
Drucker’s friend and professional colleague Warren Bennis, one of the world’s foremost leadership writers and educators, died at 89 in 2014. Bennis was one of the people I interviewed for my 2002 USA TODAY feature story on Drucker, and I later interviewed him as background for my first book. Both interviews took place by phone. He was the rare person who could speak off the cuff in perfectly composed, articulate, and enlightening sentences.
John Bachmann, who died at 80 in 2019, was the renowned former leader of the investment company Edward Jones, and a longtime Drucker friend, confidante, and supporter. In 2009, Bachmann, Bob Buford and Drucker School benefactor Masatoshi Ito received the Drucker Centennial award from the Drucker School and the Drucker Institute. Not long after my research visit to Claremont in 2005, I interviewed Bachmann in Washington, D.C., as background for the book. He was enthusiastic and encouraging to me about my Drucker-related work. In 2012, I was fortunate to attend a fascinating talk, “How I Became a CEO,” he gave at Claremont Graduate University. We spoke briefly afterward, which ended up being the last time I would have contact with him.
There are some lessons to be drawn from these reflections: (1) Seize opportunities when you can. (2) Appreciate people while they are still here. (3) Stay in touch with people, and be available to them, to the extent you can. (4) Learn what you can from people while they’re still here, but also after they are gone. (5) This lesson is inspired by my longtime Drucker School friend, professor Jeremy Hunter, whom I also interviewed that week in April 2005 (and is fortunately very much alive!). I remember fragments of something he posted online years ago, but which I believe is called Ichi-go ichi-e. I’ve seen various translations online, such as “one time, one meeting” and “for this time only.” But my memory of what Jeremy posted sounds the most poetic to me, and seems the most apt as I look back to that week in April 2005: “Cherish this encounter, for it will not come again.”