Peter Drucker's Life (Converted from Presentation Slides)

Peter F. Drucker



Photograph from the Drucker Institute, Claremont Graduate University

Drucker's Career

General Philosophy

Drucker valued:

• Diversity
• Community
• De-centralization

1920’s and 1930’s

• Moved from Vienna to Hamburg to study admiralty law
• Transferred to Frankfurt University
• Attended night school, earning PhD in law in 1932
• Senior editor at Frankfurter General-Anzeiger
• In charge of business and foreign affairs
• Two essays were banned by the Nazi Regime
• Moved to England in 1935
• Moved to United States in 1937
• Worked for British newspapers
• Taught Economics Part-time at Sarah Lawrence College
• Published first book, The End of Economic Man
• Issued British Officer Candidate School graduates during WWII

1940’s and 1950’s

• Invited to study General Motors
• Shadowed high ranking executives for several years
• Wrote Concept of the Corporation based on his experiences
• Became a Professor at Bennington College
• Appointed as Professor of Philosophy and Politics
• Became Professor of Management at NYU
• Published 1940’s
• The Future of Industrial Man
• Concept of the Corporation
• Published in 1950’s
• The New Society
• The Practice of Management
• America’s Next Twenty Years
• The Landmarks of Tomorrow

1960’s and 1970’s

• Received Presidential Citation at NYU
• Predicted rise of the internet
• Started Writing for The Wall Street Journal
• Became Marie Rankin Clarke Professor of Social Science and Management at Claremont Graduate School
• Published in 1960’s
• Managing for Results
• The Effective Executive
• The Age of Discontinuity
• Published in 1970’s
• Technology, Management and Society
• The New Markets and Other Essays
• Men, Ideas and Politics
• Drucker on Management
• Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices
• The Unseen Revolution
• People and Performance: The Best of Peter Drucker on Management
• Adventures of a Bystander

1980’s and 1990’s

• Peter F. Drucker Management Center
• Published in the 1980’s
• Managing in Turbulent Times
• Toward the Next Economics and Other Essays
• The Changing World of the Executive
• The Last of All Possible Worlds
• The Temptation to Do Good
• Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• Frontiers of Management
• The New Realities
• Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management
• Featured on the Cover of Forbes
• Published in the 1980’s
• Managing the Nonprofit Organization: Principles and Practices
• Managing for the Future
• The Ecological Vision
• Post-Capitalist Society
• Managing in a Time of Great Change
• Drucker on Asia: A Dialogue between Peter Drucker and Isao Nakauchi
• Peter Drucker on the Profession of Management
• Management Challenges for the 21st Century

2000’s

• Stopped teaching in 2002
• Received Presidential Medal of Freedom
• Published in 2000’s
• The Essential Drucker
• Managing in the Next Society
• A Functioning Society
• The Daily Drucker
• The Five Most Important Questions

Drucker's Personal Life

Early Childhood

• Born November 19, 1909
• Kaasgrabengasse in Döbling
• Eldest Child of Adolph Bertram Drucker and Caroline Bond Drucker
• Participated in many of the social gatherings of his parents
• Met Joseph Schumpeter

Moving out of Austria

Apprenticed at a cotton export-import firm in 1927 in Hamburg but did not learn much there

Moved to Frankfurt in 1928 to work at the Frankfurter General-Anzeiger 

Although focused on Foreign Affairs and Economics, had a hand in all departments

Leaving Germany

• Left for London in 1933 after Hitler came to power
• In 1934 Drucker married Doris Schmitz
• They would have 4 children together; 3 daughters 1 son
• Also attended a lecture by Lord John Meyner Keynes in Economics

To America

• Moved to the United States with his wife in 1937 and settled in the area around Bronxville, New York 
• Became a fully naturalized American Citizen in 1943 
• Also the time when his ideas about business and management really took off

Death and Legacy

• Drucker moved to California in 1971 and served as the Clarke Professor of Social Science and Management at Claremont Graduate University
• They would go on to name their management school the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management in his honor in 1987
• Continued to teach until 2002 at the age of 92 and continued to do consultant work after that
• Passed away of natural causes in 2005 at 95 years old in Claremont, California
• His wife would pass away in 2014 at 103 years old

Bibliography

Drucker, P.F. (2017) Adventures of a Bystander. [Kindle version] Available from: https://www.amazon.com/

Drucker, P.F. (2017) The End of Economic Man: The Origins of Totalitarianism. [Kindle version] Available from: https://www.amazon.com/

The Drucker Institute (N.D.) Drucker’s Career Timeline and Bibliography. Retrieved from: http://www.druckerinstitute.com/peter-druckers-life-and-legacy/druckers-career-timeline-and-bibliography/

The Drucker Institute (N.D.) About Peter F. Drucker. Retrieved from: https://www.drucker.institute/about-peter-f-drucker/