Submitted by: Submitted by naborsce
Views: 730
Words: 2166
Pages: 9
Category: Business and Industry
Date Submitted: 06/22/2011 03:34 PM
Introduction
From his beginnings, in Austria, to his death in 2005 Peter Drucker accomplished many feats that most people would consider impossible. Besides teaching, Peter Drucker has published thousands of manuscripts along with twenty six books over the last seven decades. Drucker has also made many astonishing predictions that have come true about business and economic changes. Many of Peter Drucker’s ideas and teachings are still being taught and practiced worldwide, and have impacted how modern business is conducted and will be conducted for the foreseeable future. (Kiessling & Richey, 2004)
Drucker’s Beginnings in Management
Peter Drucker was mostly involved with economics prior to 1943, and got his first real taste in management from the automobile manufacturing giant, General Motors. (Drucker, Management Challenges to the Twentyfirst Century , 1999) In 1943, General Motors invited Drucker to perform a study of its management practices. Against the advice of his friends and colleagues, Drucker accepted. This experience with General Motors led to the development of the idealism first discussed in one of his best known books “The Concept of the Corporation”. (Morrison, 2005)
During his time spent at General Motors, Peter Drucker interviewed both the workers and management, attended board meetings, visited multiple plants and worksites, and immersed himself into the day to day operations of the company. Drucker witnessed the solidarity and the skill of the workforce, and noticed what a great value that each employee was to the company. This led to one of Peter Drucker's most accepted views, that employees are a company’s biggest asset. (Morrison, 2005)
After viewing the inner workings of General Motors, Drucker concluded that employees must be treated as assets, not as expenses. Drucker believed that employees are actually the most important assets that a company has. Because of the importance Drucker placed on the individual employee, he believed that...