Short Bio on Peter Drucker

Peter Ferdinand Drucker (November 19, 1909-November 11, 2005) was an author of numerous economics-related literature who was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of a high level civil servant in the Hapsburg empire. Since World War I left Vienna with little opportunity to offer, he went to Germany to work after finishing school, first in banking and then in journalism. He also earned a doctorate in International Law while he was there. The rise of Nazism forced him to leave Germany in 1933 and after four years in London he moved for good to the United States in 1937, where he became a professor as well as a freelance writer. In 1943, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. He taught at New York University as Professor of Management from 1950 to 1971. From 1971 to his death he was the Clarke Professor of Social Science and Management at Claremont Graduate University.

His career as a business thinker took off in the 1940s, when his initial writings on politics and society won him access to the internal workings of General Motors, which was one of the largest companies in the world at that time. His experiences in Europe had left him fascinated with the problem of authority. He shared his fascination with Donaldson Brown, the mastermind behind the administrative controls at GM. Brown invited him in to conduct what might be called a political audit. The resulting "Concept of the Corporation" popularized GM's multidivisional structure and led to numerous articles, consulting engagements, and additional books.

Drucker was interested in the growing importance of people who worked with their minds rather than their hands. He was intrigued by employees who know more about certain subjects than their bosses or colleagues and yet had to cooperate with others in a large organization. Rather than simply glorify the phenomenon as the epitome of human progress, Drucker analyzed it and explained how it challenged the common thinking about how organizations should be run.

His approach worked well in the increasingly mature business world of the second half of the twentieth century. By that time, large corporations had developed the basic manufacturing efficiencies and managerial hierarchies of mass production. Executives thought they know how to run companies, and Drucker took it upon himself to poke holes in their beliefs, lest organizations become stale. But he did so in a sympathetic way. He