The Bridge Builder

An old man, going a lone highway, Came at the evening cold and gray, To a chasm, vast and deep and wide, Through which was flowing a sullen tide. The old man crossed in the twilight dim, That sullen stream had no fears for him; But he turned, when he reached the other side, And built a bridge to span the tide. “Old man”, said a fellow pilgrim near, “You are wasting your time building here. Your journey will end with the ending day; You never again must pass this way. You have crossed the chasm, deep and wide, Why do you build a bridge at eventide?” The builder lifted his grey old head. “Good friend, in the path I have come”, he said, “There follows after me today, A youth whose feet must pass this way. This chasm that has been naught to me, To that fair-haired youth may a pitfall be. He, too, must cross in the twilight dim; Good friend, I am building the bridge for him.” - Poem By Will Allen Dromgoole With loads of thanks to Bud Bilanich

On The Loss of A Young Life

In the memory of Manjunath Shanmugam, who gave up his life in line of duty… We need to ensure that the sacrifice doesn’t go waste. We need to ensure that his name is never forgotten. We need to ensure that the perpetrators of this heinous crime are brought to justice. We need to ensure that incidents like this are never repeated. So I request all my readers to visit the site set up in memory of the hero by his friends (http://manjunathshanmugam.blogspot.com/) I also request all of you to please sign the Petition to the Prime Minister at http://www.petitiononline.com/manju005/. It may/may not result in anything, but the effort is still important. If nothing else, it will help bring some pressure on the government, and focus media attention on the politician-criminal nexus! Join the good fight! Gaurav Sabnis has a moving eulogy here & here For the full story, please visit Rashmi Bansal Other blog posts on Manju’s murder: Animesh Pathak Amit Varma Sharad Dhammo Indian Express articles: IOC official seals petrol pump, is killed Cops hunting for accused in IOC sales manager’s murder Father of IIM graduate killed for shutting down petrol pump says he knew of danger

Thanksgiving Proclamation

Here is the original Thanksgiving Proclamation: "Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness: Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us. And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best. Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3rd day of October, A.D. 1789." George Washington

Being Thankful

Since today is Thanksgiving, all my posts today will have something to do with gratitude, love, joy & hope. Scott Adams has a fantastic piece out today. Extracts below, but please read the complete piece. I promise, it’ll be worth your time… I’m thankful for the invention of the television remote control, without which life itself would be impossible. I’m thankful that my cat can purr but not laugh, because a laughing cat would be creepy. I’m sure there are a more things I should be thankful for, but I take all of those things for granted. And the privilege of doing so is perhaps the thing I am most thankful for. As for me, I’m thankful to Scott for having brought me so much joy. I know a lot of people think Dilbert’s a cynic, but I think we all need someone to point out to us (business-folk) our warts. Someone needs to say that the emperor’s naked. And Scott does it in such a fun way too! Dilbert strips have always made me smile. And most of them have made me think… Thank you Scott! And Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

With Gratitude on Thanksgiving Day

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the USA. What a beautiful concept! Thanksgiving is a holiday unencumbered by gift-giving, unlike birthdays or Christmas or the like. At Thanksgiving, all you give is… Thanks! Adrian Savage writing in/as The Coyote Within says “Holidays used to be times for slowing down and remembering. They should be again.” Check out the full article on Participation at his site. (He writes it so much better than I ever could, so instead of trying to publish extracts, have just given the link) Please also check out the guest article by Patricia Ryan Madson on Slow Leadership. She talks about Gratitude… “Looking at life with a grateful eye is a habit, and can be cultivated.” Thank you Adrian, Patricia & Slow Leadership for reminding us of the truly important things in life!

Celebrate Failure

So says Richard Watson in this FastCompany column. An extremely interesting observation is regarding people’s response to failure. Most people will deny it, or attribute it to causes outside themselves! This is because as Watson says “Most people believe that success breeds success and they believe that the converse is true too, that failure breeds failure”. Another interesting viewpoint in the essay is regarding the oft-repeated “tenacity advice”. Most motivational speakers urge people not to give up. They say that if you just keep on trying, you will eventually succeed. And if you don’t, it must have something to do with your not trying hard enough. Watson believes this to be false. He advises us to learn from failure and try again differently. As Henry Moore said: "The secret of life is to have a task, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is: It must be something you cannot possibly do.” Watson’s top five tips for failing with greater frequency and style: 1. Try to fail as often as possible but never make the same mistake twice. 2. Set a failure target as part of each employee's annual review. 3. If projects are a failure, kill them quickly and move on. 4. Create a failure database as part of knowledge management. 5. Set up annual failure awards. If this gets too successful, stop it. What do you think?

Primer on Bloglines

A fair number of people have come back asking about Bloglines… I thought it was better to put a primer on setting up & managing a Bloglines account here, rather than mailing it to everyone one by one… Please do keep in mind though, that this section will seem fairly simplistic to the techies out there…this is a tech-phobe writing for other tech-phobes…suggestions for improvement invited! Getting Started Go to http://www.bloglines.com/; create an account...then set up feeds as follows: You'll see something like "Subscribe with one click from your browser toolbar". This should allow you to add a shortcut called "Sub with Bloglines" to your favorites folder. Then go to the website you want to set up a feed from, and click on "Sub with Bloglines". It'll show you all the feeds from the website, select the latest one (I found atom feeds to be better than RSS feeds, but you might like to play around a bit) & click OK. ALTERNATIVELY: Look around on the chosen website for a link saying RSS or XML. Usually this is an orange box. Their also might be a link saying "subscribe to feed", etc. Right click on this link, copy shortcut, go to your Bloglines account, click "Add", paste the link in the box & click OK. ALTERNATIVELY: On some websites, e.g. New York Times, etc. you can also get their OPML file, save it to your desktop; then just add it to your “Add” box in Bloglines, then click OK. You'll see the feed links; delete the ones you don't want. You can also move them to other folders, etc, by using the “edit subscriptions” tab on the top right, or by using the “Edit” button (top left, next to “Add”) You might have to play around a bit on Bloglines before you are fully comfortable, but it does ease the problem of visiting all your favourite websites one by one. To Start With: You can view my subscriptions on http://www.bloglines.com/public/indianinuk. You'll see a tab at the very bottom, saying "export subscriptions", on clicking which you can view the OPML file, save it... then just add it to your “Add” box in Bloglines, and click OK. Once you've exported my OPML file to your Bloglines account, you might want to delete/modify/reorganise quite a few feeds. But it should help you get started. Further: You can set up your options, so that it only shows you the updated feeds...makes it a whole lot easier to manage... you can always view all your feeds by either clicking on “Show All” or using the “Edit” button. Plus, if you choose the option to make your blog public on this one, then you could send me the link to your subscriptions later on...will help me add feeds...(I know, I know…shameless, aren’t I?) One more thing: If you want to share your subscriptions with others, please keep them "Public"; else others will not be able to view it... (hmmm… good idea to click off "Public", if you have subscriptions to "naughty" feeds...;-)) Hope this helps. Do comment on whether this was useful, and also as to how this article could be improved upon. Happy feed-gathering!

Teacher Man by Frank McCourt out now!

Frank McCourt was born in America to Irish parents who brought him up (so to speak) in Ireland. At the age of 19, he made his way back to America, where he worked in a variety of low-paying jobs while earning a college degree, after which he taught in New York schools. His book on growing up in Ireland Angela’s Ashes won the Pulitzer Prize. A moving story of pain, loss, deprivation & hope, it’s quite simply the best memoir I’ve read till date! This was followed by ‘Tis, based on his later life in New York. However, the 30-year period during which he taught in schools, was largely given the short shrift in this book. With Teacher Man, McCourt makes amends, and gives us a bit more insight into this part of his life. The book (or at least the parts I’ve read) is vintage McCourt, with his unique brand of low-key humour shining through the most painful of experiences. Also, like the earlier two, it is the story of a young person discovering life… excerpts below (from http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,,1648343,00.html ): “Mea culpa. Instead of teaching, I told stories. Anything to keep them quiet and in their seats. They thought I was teaching. I thought I was teaching. I was learning. And you called yourself a teacher? I didn't call myself anything. I was more than a teacher. And less. In the high school classroom you are a drill sergeant, a rabbi, a shoulder to cry on, a disciplinarian, a singer, a low-level scholar, a clerk, a referee, a clown, a counsellor, a dress-code enforcer, a conductor, an apologist, a philosopher, a collaborator, a tap dancer, a politician, a therapist, a fool, a traffic cop, a priest, a mother-father-brother-sister-uncle-aunt, a bookkeeper, a critic, a psychologist, the last straw.” …AND “The big puzzle at the end of the term is how does the teacher arrive at a grade? I'll tell you how I arrive at a grade. First, how was your attendance? Even if you sat quietly in the back and thought about the discussions and the readings, you surely learned something. Second, did you participate? Did you get up there and read on Fridays? Anything. Stories, essays, poetry, plays. Third, did you comment on the work of your classmates? Fourth, and this is up to you, can you reflect on this experience and ask yourself what you learned? Fifth, did you just sit there and dream? If you did, give yourself credit. This is where teacher turns serious and asks the Big Question: What is education, anyway? What are we doing in this school? You can say you are trying to graduate so that you can go to college and prepare for a career. But, fellow students, it's more than that. I've had to ask myself what the hell I'm doing in the classroom. I've worked out an equation for myself. On the left side of the blackboard I print a capital F, on the right side another capital F. I draw an arrow from left to right, from Fear to Freedom. I don't think anyone achieves complete freedom, but what I am trying to do with you is drive fear into a corner.”

Kindness to Strangers

Don Blohowiak talks about “small acts of kindness” in Leadership. Now. He passes along the advise of Michael Mercer to Do Unnecessary Acts of Kindness. Mike tells this story about an interesting experience he had once when reaching out to help: One day, while driving, I saw a frail, elderly lady at a busy street corner looking at cars zooming by. I figured she was having trouble crossing the street. So, parked my car, walked to her, and let her hold my arm as I stopped traffic and helped her slowly cross the street. When we got to the other side, I asked if she needed any more help. She sweetly smiled, and said to me, "Actually, I didn't want to cross the street." So, I asked her, "For what reason did you let me help you cross the street?" Tears welled up in her eyes as she explained, "The fact that you went out of your way to help me was the nicest thing anyone has done for me in a long time. And I didn't want to detract from your goodness." Mike makes a point of noting that he did help her back across the street! Michael Mercer recommends that we all do one or more totally "unnecessary acts of kindness" daily. As Don says, wouldn't that be something for which we could all give thanks?! Have you done an unnecessary act of kindness today?

Web 2.0 Experience Continuum

Read this lovely article by Dan Saffer in Adaptive Path, where he quotes William Gibson "The future is here. It's just unevenly distributed.” He says: “Over the next ten years, we’ll see a wide range of experiences online, from highly structured to nearly formless… So what will the next ten years feel like? Disorienting at first, but normal eventually. It will take time for users to acclimate to the semi-structured experiences available on the Web, and even longer to accept the unstructured experiences. We’ll shed some of the metaphors — sites, bookmarks, pages, and so on — that we’ve used to orient ourselves on the Web, in the same way that cars stopped having running boards and television has stopped broadcasting stage plays.” Talking of the Web 2.0 Experience Continuum, he notes: “On the conservative side of this experience continuum, we’ll still have familiar Websites, like blogs, homepages, marketing and communication sites, the big content providers (in one form or another), search engines, and so on. These are structured experiences. Their form and content are determined mainly by their designers and creators. In the middle of the continuum, we’ll have rich, desktop-like applications that have migrated to the Web…These will be traditional desktop applications like word processing, spreadsheets, and email. But the more interesting will be Internet-native, those built to take advantage of the strengths of the Internet: collective actions and data (e.g. Amazon’s “People who bought this also bought…”), social communities across wide distances (Yahoo Groups), aggregation of many sources of data, near real-time access to timely data (stock quotes, news), and easy publishing of content from one to many (blogs, Flickr). The experiences here in the middle of the continuum are semi-structured in that they specify the types of experiences you can have with them, but users supply the content (such as it is). On the far side of the continuum are the unstructured experiences: a glut of new services, many of which won’t have Websites to visit at all. We’ll see loose collections of application parts, content, and data that don’t exist anywhere really, yet can be located, used, reused, fixed, and remixed. The content you’ll search for and use might reside on an individual computer, a mobile phone, even traffic sensors along a remote highway. But you probably won’t need to know where these loose bits live; your tools will know. These unstructured bits won’t be useful without the tools and the knowledge necessary to make sense of them, sort of how an HTML file doesn’t make much sense without a browser to view it. Indeed, many of them will be inaccessible or hidden if you don’t have the right tools.”

Quotes from Peter Drucker

1. Help is defined by the recipient 2. The critical question is not "How can I achieve?" but "What can I contribute?" 3. There is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer. He alone gives employment. 4. It is easier to raise the performance of one leader than it is to raise the performance of a whole mass. 5. An executive should be a realist; and no one is less realistic than the cynic. 6. You cannot prevent a major catastrophe, but you can build an organization that is battle-ready, where people trust one another. In military training, the first rule is to instill soldiers with trust in their officers -- because without trust, they won't fight. 7. Listening (the first competence of leadership) is not a skill, it is a discipline. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut. 8. It is easy to look good in a boom. 9. Luck never built a business. Prosperity and growth come only to the business that systematically finds and exploits its potential. 10. The one person to distrust is the one who never makes a mistake. Either he is a phony, or he stays with the safe, the tried, and the trivial. 11. There are keys to success in managing bosses. First, put down on a piece of paper a "boss list," everyone to whom you are accountable. Next, go to each person on the list and ask, "What do I do and what do my people do that helps you do your job?" And, "What do we do that makes your life more difficult?" 12. Workmanship is essential: In fact, an organization demoralizes itself if it does not demand of its members the highest workmanship. 13. A decision is a commitment to action. No decision has, in fact, been made until carrying it out has become somebody's responsibility. 14. It's much easier to sell the Brooklyn Bridge than to give it away. Nobody trusts you if you offer something for free. 15. The ultimate test of an information system is that there are no surprises. 16. Until a business returns a profit that is greater than its cost of capital, it does not create wealth -- it destroys it. 17. The question has to be asked -- and asked seriously -- "If we did not do this already, would we go into it now?" If the answer is no, the reaction must be "What do we do now?" Very often, the right answer is abandonment. 18. Freedom is not fun. It is a responsible choice. 19. One can't manage change. One can only be ahead of it. 20. Just go out and make yourself useful. 21. Conventional wisdom is often long on convention and short on wisdom. 22. Businessmen owe it to themselves and owe it to society to hammer home that there is no such thing as "profit." There are only "costs": costs of doing business and costs of staying in business; costs of labor and raw materials, and costs of capital; costs of today's jobs and costs of tomorrow's jobs and tomorrow's pensions. There is no conflict between "profit" and "social responsibility." To earn enough to cover the genuine costs, which only the so-called "profit" can cover, is economic and social responsibility -- indeed, it is the specific social and economic responsibility of business. It is not the business that earns a profit adequate to its genuine costs of capital, to the risks of tomorrow and to the needs of tomorrow's worker and pensioner that "rips off" society. It is the business that fails to do so. 23. I would hope that American managers -- indeed managers worldwide -- continue to appreciate what I have been saying since day one: Management is so much more than exercising rank and privilege, it's so much more than 'making deals.' Management affects people and their lives, both in business and many other aspects as well. The practice of management deserves our utmost attention; it deserves to be studied. 24. Management by objectives works if you first think through your objectives. Ninety percent of the time you haven't. 25. Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately generate into hard work. 26. So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work. 27. What everyone knows is usually wrong. 28. Popularity is not leadership. Results are. Leadership is not rank, privileges, titles, or money. It is responsibility. There may be 'born leaders,' but there surely are too few to depend on them. 29. Leadership is not magnetic personality - that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not 'making friends and influencing people' - that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to higher sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations. 30. Leadership is the lifting of a man's vision to higher sights, the raising of a man's performance to a higher standard and the building of a man's personality beyond its normal limitations. 31. Of all the decisions an executive makes, none is as important as the decisions about people, because they determine the performance capacity of the organization. 32. In today's marketplace, productivity is the true competitive advantage. 33. The effectiveness of an organization depends on work being done at the lowest possible organization level. 34. The one truly effective way to cut costs is to cut out an activity altogether. There is little point in trying to do cheaply what should not be done at all. 35. The best way to predict the future is to create it.

Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management

Received my copy of Swanson's unwritten rules of management... with delight... last weekend! This pocket-sized volume is available free from http://wwwxt.raytheon.com/communications/whs_rules/ William Swanson is the Chairman & CEO of Raytheon, the fourth largest defense contractor in the world. As a young executive, he noted down these "rules" on scraps of paper...on becoming CEO, he presented them to young Raytheon executives...last year the 76-page book started making the rounds of the management underground in the US. Eventually, Warren Buffett received a copy -- and liked it so much that he asked for dozens more to give to his CEOs, friends, and family. Bill Swanson's '25 Unwritten Rules of Management' 1. Learn to say, "I don't know." If used when appropriate, it will be often. 2. It is easier to get into something than it is to get out of it. 3. If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much. 4. Look for what is missing. Many know how to improve what's there, but few can see what isn't there. 5. Viewgraph rule: When something appears on a viewgraph (an overhead transparency), assume the world knows about it, and deal with it accordingly. 6. Work for a boss with whom you are comfortable telling it like it is. Remember that you can't pick your relatives, but you can pick your boss. 7. Constantly review developments to make sure that the actual benefits are what they are supposed to be. Avoid Newton's Law. 8. However menial and trivial your early assignments may appear, give them your best efforts. 9. Persistence or tenacity is the disposition to persevere in spite of difficulties, discouragement, or indifference. Don't be known as a good starter but a poor finisher. 10. In completing a project, don't wait for others; go after them, and make sure it gets done. 11. Confirm your instructions and the commitments of others in writing. Don't assume it will get done! 12. Don't be timid; speak up. Express yourself, and promote your ideas. 13. Practice shows that those who speak the most knowingly and confidently often end up with the assignment to get it done. 14. Strive for brevity and clarity in oral and written reports. 15. Be extremely careful of the accuracy of your statements. 16. Don't overlook the fact that you are working for a boss. * Keep him or her informed. Avoid surprises! * Whatever the boss wants takes top priority. 17. Promises, schedules, and estimates are important instruments in a well-ordered business. * You must make promises. Don't lean on the often-used phrase, "I can't estimate it because it depends upon many uncertain factors." 18. Never direct a complaint to the top. A serious offense is to "cc" a person's boss. 19. When dealing with outsiders, remember that you represent the company. Be careful of your commitments. 20. Cultivate the habit of "boiling matters down" to the simplest terms. An elevator speech is the best way. 21. Don't get excited in engineering emergencies. Keep your feet on the ground. 22. Cultivate the habit of making quick, clean-cut decisions. 23. When making decisions, the pros are much easier to deal with than the cons. Your boss wants to see the cons also. 24. Don't ever lose your sense of humor. 25. Have fun at what you do. It will reflect in your work. No one likes a grump except another grump. To read more about what this wonderful book please visit: http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,1069237,00.html http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,1071479,00.html http://www.dancentury.com/home/archives/2005/08/23/bill-swansons-unwritten-rules-of-management/ http://spaces.msn.com/members/chiefskipper/Blog/cns!1pcQyny3goTsBSdT3kgCqCvQ!328.entry http://800ceoread.com/blog/archives/005816.html P.S. – Business 2.0 also had an article called Books That Matter http://www.business2.com/b2/web/articles/0,17863,516019,00.html

Akanksha Musical

Akanksha children bring to the city of Mumbai another Broadway-adapted musical, ‘Kabir and the Rangeen Kurta’. With a 150 less privileged children participating and many more working on its production, this musical sends out another simple message… the power of dreams and the courage it takes to make them come true… Directed by Kruttika Desai, choreographed by Shiamak Davar, sets by Fali Unwala, music by Roger Drego & lights by Michael Nazreth... Last year’s event 'Once Upon a Time in Shantipur' (which I attended) was an absolute delight. You would have forgiven me for thinking these kids were professional actors with years of stage experience! Every nuance measured, every dialogue delivered with panache, each of the 100-odd kids breathed confidence, elegance & passion. Surely, someone lied when they told us these were less-privileged kids who’d never seen a theatre in their lives, forget about acting in one! For had they not told us, we wouldn’t have known…not in a million years… As I wrote to a K Sriram of Akanksha after the event: “The play was wonderful, stupendous, amazing! Thank you, Akanksha & the kids for giving us an opportunity to experience pure joy! Can I book tickets for next year now?” Alas, I shall not be able to attend this year’s show (another reason I hate being away from India), but my best wishes to the Akanksha kids. For those of you who are in Mumbai, this is probably an opportunity of a lifetime. Do yourself a favour: Go & See It! Details: Venue: St. Andrew’s Auditorium, Bandra, Mumbai December 2005: 2nd & 3rd at 7pm; 4th at 12 noon January 2006: 6th & 7th at 7pm; 8th at 12 noon Ticket Prices: Rs 1000, Rs 500, Rs 300, Rs 200 Contact Manoj at the Akanksha office on 23700253/23729880 More details at: www.akanksha.org/events/musicallanding.htm

My Life as a Knowledge Worker - By Peter Drucker

Just read this absolutely brilliant article by Professor Drucker in Inc Magazine, in which he writes about the seven experiences that shaped his attitude to life and work. Thank you Gautam Ghosh for leading me to it, and for the excerpt… “I had no idea what I would become, except that I knew by that time that I was unlikely to be a success exporting cotton textiles. But I resolved that whatever my life's work would be, Verdi's words would be my lodestar. I resolved that if I ever reached an advanced age, I would not give up but would keep on. In the meantime I would strive for perfection, even though, as I well knew, it would surely always elude me. I have done many things that I hope the gods will not notice, but I have always known that one has to strive for perfection even if only the gods notice. Gradually, I developed a system. I still adhere to it. Every three or four years I pick a new subject. It may be Japanese art; it may be economics. Three years of study are by no means enough to master a subject, but they are enough to understand it. So for more than 60 years I have kept on studying one subject at a time. That not only has given me a substantial fund of knowledge. It has also forced me to be open to new disciplines and new approaches and new methods--for every one of the subjects I have studied makes different assumptions and employs a different methodology. I have set aside two weeks every summer in which to review my work during the preceding year, beginning with the things I did well but could or should have done better, down to the things I did poorly and the things I should have done but did not do. I decide what my priorities should be in my consulting work, in my writing, and in my teaching. I have never once truly lived up to the plan I make each August, but it has forced me to live up to Verdi's injunction to strive for perfection, even though "it has always eluded me" and still does. Since then, when I have a new assignment, I ask myself the question, "What do I need to do, now that I have a new assignment, to be effective?" Every time, it is something different. Discovering what it is requires concentration on the things that are crucial to the new challenge, the new job, the new task. To know one's strengths, to know how to improve them, and to know what one cannot do--they are the keys to continuous learning. First, one has to ask oneself what one wants to be remembered for. Second, that should change. It should change both with one's own maturity and with changes in the world. Finally, one thing worth being remembered for is the difference one makes in the lives of people.”

Farewell Professor Drucker (1909-2005)

When its time for you to go, as that time will most certainly come, Ultimately what matters is not your success, but your significance… Peter Drucker was undoubtedly the most significant management philosopher of all time. His writing spanned well over half a century, a period during which technologies, markets and organizations changed dramatically, yet his insights were always fresh and pertinent. Professor Drucker had the ability to cut through what seemed to many to be highly complex organizational and managerial issues and identify the basics. A humble man, he said “I'm totally uninteresting. I'm a writer, and writers don't have interesting lives. My books, my work, yes. That's different." No one who knew him agreed with the first part; even those (like me) who dipped into his enormous body of work agree with the second. The body is gone; the spirit lives on… in the heart of the countless millions who find business an exciting, enticing, passionate adventure… Thank you, Peter Drucker! ======================================================================== Eulogies Jim Collins wrote in his foreword to The Daily Drucker: “Drucker’s primary contribution is not a single idea, but rather an entire body of work that has one gigantic advantage: nearly all of it is essentially right. Drucker has an uncanny ability to develop insights about the workings of the social world, and to later be proved right by history.” Tom Peters wrote: “…Peter Drucker didn't "invent" management. The Chinese probably did thousands of years ago—among other things, Sun Tzu's roughly 2,500-year-old The Art of War is a full-blown "management" text. So, too, Machiavelli's The Prince. And Frederick Taylor's century-old The Principles of Scientific Management. But Peter Drucker did arguably (1) "invent" modern management as we now think of it; (2) give the study and craft of management-as-profession credibility and visibility, even though biz schools like Harvard had been around for a long time; and (3) provide a (the first?) comprehensive toolkit-framework for addressing and even mastering the problems of emergent enterprise complexity. And he did something else incredibly important: He popularized the study of-appreciation of modern management. Drucker’s historical significance will rest on works such as The Concept of the Corporation (1946), The Practice of Management (1954) and The Effective Executive (1967), which are the tracts that launched the "practice of management" as we know it to this day—and probably as we will know it for decades to come.” Knowledge@Wharton said: “Drucker studied management -- in fact, he discovered it and taught how it can make a difference to society. In doing so, he has left our world the richer for the knowledge he created and shared.” Dan Pink writes: “But Drucker's greatest legacy is not so much what he said. It's how he lived. Forget the brilliance of his thought. Look at the texture of his life. The man was a glorious role model. Three examples: · He worked his butt off and never became complacent. With all his accomplishments, Drucker could have started phoning it in 30 years ago. He didn't. He pushed and pushed and pushed. He wrote more than a dozen books after he turned 65! Amazing. · He was a non-stop learner. Drucker said that every few years he liked to master a new subject. That's why this Austrian guy with a law degree and penchant for economics decided to study . . . Japanese art. He became an expert, of course. But more important than this particular expertise was the broader lesson: There's always more to learn and the most valuable learning often exists outside the cramped cabin of "management." Drucker's long life proved the principle: Being curious is the only way to be fully alive. · He devoted himself to a higher cause. The essence of Drucker's philosophy was that, at its best, business could be about something noble. Business (in contrast to centralized government, which he once called "obese, muscle-bound, and senile") offered a powerful way to liberate human potential and elevate our lives. He counseled companies not only to perform better, but also to be better. And he pressed himself to be better as well. He devoted much of his later life to advising non-profit groups (though he often made them write a check he never cashed so they knew the full value of his advice.) Drucker lived modestly, but his reason for living wasn't modest at all: He wanted to change the world.” Business Pundit says: “He asked questions to which the answers seemed obvious, but upon closer examination we realized they weren't what we thought.” Evolving Excellence said: “Most of all, he spent his career tirelessly pushing American management to think ahead and to improve. Most likely he is already staring to delve into the organizational structure and strategy deployment process in heaven, with plans to give the Creator a few tips on how to be best prepared for the next wave of immigrants.” Economist said: “He changed the course of thousands of businesses. He spawned two huge revolutions at General Electric—first when GE followed the radical decentralisation he preached in the 1950s, and again in the 1980s when Jack Welch rebuilt the company around Mr Drucker's belief that it should be first or second in a line of business, or else get out. Yet Mr Drucker is also cited as a muse by both the Salvation Army and the modern mega-church movement. Wherever people grapple with tricky management problems, from big organisations to small ones, from the public sector to the private, and increasingly in the voluntary sector, you can find Mr Drucker's fingerprints… … These days management theory is increasingly dominated by academic clones who produce papers on minute subjects in unreadable prose. That certainly does not apply to a man who claimed that the academic course that most influenced him was on, of all things, admiralty law… … Management theory has not evolved into the world's most rigorous or enticing intellectual discipline. But in Peter Drucker it at least found a champion whom every educated person should take the trouble to read.” BusinessWeek called him The Man Who Invented Management, noting that: “-- It was Drucker who introduced the idea of decentralization -- in the 1940s -- which became a bedrock principle for virtually every large organization in the world. -- He was the first to assert -- in the 1950s -- that workers should be treated as assets, not as liabilities to be eliminated. -- He originated the view of the corporation as a human community -- again, in the 1950s -- built on trust and respect for the worker and not just a profit-making machine, a perspective that won Drucker an almost godlike reverence among the Japanese. -- He first made clear -- still the '50s -- that there is "no business without a customer," a simple notion that ushered in a new marketing mind-set. -- He argued in the 1960s -- long before others -- for the importance of substance over style, for institutionalized practices over charismatic, cult leaders. -- And it was Drucker again who wrote about the contribution of knowledge workers -- in the 1970s -- long before anyone knew or understood how knowledge would trump raw material as the essential capital of the New Economy.” Wall Street Journal has a great section devoted to his opinion pieces at http://online.wsj.com/public/page/2_1194.html In 1999, the WSJ published the following on the occasion of his 90th birthday: "Drucker is famous for a series of questions: What is our business? Who is the customer? What does the customer value? The answers to those questions, asked by generations of managers around the globe, became known as "the theory of the business." ... The most distinctive hallmark of the managerial mindset is that it operates from that theory. Major decisions and initiatives all become tests of the theory. Profits are important in part because they tell you whether your theory is working. If you fail to achieve the results you expected, you re-examine your model. It is the managerial equivalent of the scientific method, starting with hypotheses which are then tested in action, and revised when necessary.” Please Also see: Claremont University: The Legacy of Peter Drucker Fortune: Peter Drucker – An Appreciation Business Library: Obituaries For some more insight into the man & his works, refer Drucker Archives at http://www.druckerarchives.net/

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