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| Seventh Week: |
Information revolution changes the world --- There you play the leading role |
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History changes every few hundred years. Thirty-two yeas ago, Drucker wrote "The Age of Discontinuity" (1969). At that time, he saw the discontinuities in history, and these discontinuities still persist. This drama is approaching to the climax. The book became one of the great best sellers all over the world, especially in Japan. The Japanese have a good eye for things. However, even though we resonated with Drucker thirty years ago, we have not made any significant measures since then. What is even worse, we have gone through the bubble economy and its bust. We can say only sorry. The new translation of "The Age of Discontinuity" was published in 2000 in Japan and is read widely again. Drucker wrote"Managing in Turbulent Times"(1980), and informed us of coming of the turbulent times. He gave us a warning about the bubble. He teaches us not only the future that has already happened, but also the measures to deal with. However, at that time, not so many corporations seemed to have taken measures seriously. The pass of 50 years Ten years later, or just twenty years after "The Age of Discontinuity," he wrote "The New Realities" (1989). The lead paragraph begins like this, "Even in the flattest landscape, there are passes. Most of these passes are only topography, with little or no difference in climate, language, or culture. But some passes are different. They are true divides. History, too, knows such divides." The discontinuity was the beginning of a pass or divides. And, four years later, Drucker said in "Post-Capital Society" (1993) that the pass is not momentary. It has length. It lasts some fifty years. This time, it began around 1965 and will continue until around 2020. Before this fifty years, it was the era of the Economic Man, expressed in the form of capitalist society or socialist society, or it was the era of the government. People in 2020 or after will wonder, "What was the money-oriented society like?" or "Did people ever expect such a thing of the government?" Drucker says we will have to depend on historians. It is now common sense in Japan that we are absolutely in the middle of the great transition stage. There is a reason for us to recall today's hardship as the days when we were lying low awaiting a chance for a great leap. If not, we will be in trouble. One of the strength of Japan and the Japanese that Drucker points out is the ability to change. Japan adopted Buddhism and Tang culture in no time. The world saw an unprecedented accomplishment in Meiji Restoration. Also, Japan miraculously recovered from the ruins of World War II. However, I cannot be sure if we are determined now as we had been in the Meiji Restoration or at the end of World War II. The transition era began from about 1965 and will last until about 2020. And even after the era, we will be in a continuous change because it is the knowledge society. It is nothing more than the kind of the stability in which constant change is the ordinary state. What to be remembered for Consequently, most of the readers of this interview belong to the generation that knows nothing but the transition or that was born in the transition and lives into the era of constant change. I can say that you are an unprecedented generations. Will this be hard? No, we should take it interesting. You can see the great drama unfold every day. You are given a role to play. You will be able to take the leading roles in that drama. Therefore, I would like to introduce to you one important quotation. This is from Drucker's elementary school teacher in a religion class in a Lutheran missionary. It is "What do you want to be remembered for?" By asking this question on your birthday, Christmas Eve or New Year's Day, you can change your life, says Drucker. Aging of society does not simply mean that the average life expectancy has increased, but it means that everyone will live into his eighties and nineties. Drucker and I are still exchanging faxes every ten-day. He surely tells me about his resent news. He is receiving many visitors: a Chinese educational organization the day before, video-taping of his lecture the next day, a leader of a government from an emerging country the following day, and a top executive from Japanese multinational the following week. The ideal is to take a leading role after ninety like Drucker. Mrs. Drucker, Doris, who studied law at Frankfurt University, after raising one son and three daughters, studied physics in the U.S. With knowledge of law and physics, she worked as a patent attorney. She became an inventor at sixty and an entrepreneur at eighty. Issues around knowledge work and manual work The present transition period lasts till the year 2020 or 2030. In this transition, all aspects of society, economy, politics and education will not change at the same time. Some have already changed, and some will change later. There are some whose issues have just become clear, and some whose issues are still not clear. The society after the transition will be new and different. It will not be an economy-centered. The economy itself will change from capital-centered to knowledge-centered. Obtaining knowledge on cancer will result in business. Money can be collected anywhere. The manual works are not in the center for a long time. Labor unions, developed for manual workers, cannot be in the same way as they used to. They had more power than the government in the U.K. Beyond doubt, labor unions will have an important role as a countervailing power against management. But its role has already changed. As for productivity, the stress is not on manual workers. Labor productivity went up dramatically after the productivity revolution led by Frederick W. Taylor (1856-1915). But manual work population has already dropped drastically. The stress now is on the productivity of knowledge work. The source of a country's economy, company's success, and individual's meaningful work and life is knowledge work. Productivity of knowledge work is the biggest task. However, that productivity is so far ridiculously low. Fortunately there is methodology for the productivity of knowledge work. There are the methodology for decision making and innovation. The reason why Drucker has so many fans is because they can learn a lot about not only humanity and society. On the basis of enormous knowledge and abundant experiences, Drucker presents us fundamentals and principles for action. He does not give us specific prescriptions, but gives us fundamentals and principles. The first principle for productivity of knowledge work is not to do things that do not contribute to results. Of course, the typical things are reports that nobody reads, and meetings where nobody listens. Why do sales people in the cosmetic sections of Japanese department stores ignore customers passing by in favor of burying their nose in their accounting logs? Knowledge work improves its productivity to a large extent when it connects to self-fulfillment. However, there remains one important problem. That is the people stranded from the stream of the knowledge society. Not all can be knowledge workers. There is not much worry about job opportunities and income. We may be worried about labor shortages instead. There however remain issues about dignity, purpose, and status of manual workers. Among developed countries where the knowledge society prevails, only in the United States and Japan where people traditionally respect knowledge, the issues might not become intolerable. Although, even in the two countries, the issues continue to remain. The fundamental solution can be accomplished only by enormous increase of their productivity. It is only by making their contribution clear. Economists do not touch the issues of the meaning of work for manual workers. But, the stranded manual worker is a serious concern for Drucker. He grapples with it as a problem of a counter culture because they are also people. A society with people left behind is not a functioning society. Impact of e-commerce In addition, information technology changes the world. The impact of e-commerce should be tremendous. We, however, do not know what can be on e-commerce or what not on. Changes in distribution channels and their impacts are impossible to know beforehand. Drucker compares the Information Revolution with the Industrial Revolution. The steam engine brought the Industrial Revolution and changed industry, economy and society. Yet, the steam engine did not produce anything new. It only produced the same goods on a larger scale and high speed. It made mass-production possible. Of course, it was a great accomplishment worth calling a revolution. However, by introducing the railroad, the Industrial Revolution changed the world fundamentally. It shortened distance and gave people freedom to move for the first time in history. It produced a national market. The same thing is happening in the Information Technology Revolution. With the development of the computer, data could be processed at tremendous speed. Complicated calculations and designing that took half a year now can be done within a few days. But it has not produced anything new. It made processes routine. It was a revolution. But wide spread prediction such as decision making by computer has not materialized. There is no sign that it will. The Information Revolution, however, produced the equivalent to the railroad. Drucker says it is e-commerce. E-commerce makes distance disappear. It will surely change the unrelated fields with IT in economy, society, politics and culture as the railroad did. You might be a leading player Its biggest influence is not on the computer-related industry. In the Printing Revolution, printing craftsmen were raised to the nobility. But the leading role was soon shifted to writers, publishers, and editors. In the Information Revolution, the leading role will shift from hardware to content. What is important in IT is not T (technology) but I (information). The real leading player for the IT Revolution has not appeared yet. Even information from computer is not the most important. It is on the past and on the inside, says Drucker. Now, the net-bubble went bust. Drucker had warned this even before the bubble started. The Information Revolution will change the world. But the real leading players are yet to appear. It might be you. | ||
| Toyokeizai: How does Drucker work? | ||
How the organization is managed determines society's affluence and an individual's life and work. Drucker wrote "The Practice of Management" (1954) at the age of forty-four, which established him the father of management. He wrote "Managing for the Results" (1964) at fifty-four, which is known as the world first and the best management strategy book. He declared that the purpose of business is to create customers. Drucker's management was born and raised through his consulting, as an "outside insider." Because Drucker has been consulting for every kind of organization in the world, all kinds of problems are continuously laid down before him. Therefore, he can see the most up-dated world. In addition to this, Drucker has been teaching in colleges and graduate schools since 1938. His graduate students are executives of big corporations, entrepreneurs of middle and small sized companies and managers of every kind of government agency and non-profit organization. Those students are also the source of Drucker's observations. Even today, he teaches every Saturday at the Claremont Graduate University. Teaching inspires him. There are abundant topics that he wants to write about. There are thirty-two major books that Drucker has published. And now he is writing "Beyond the Information Revolution" (working title). In addition, he contributes articles to The Harvard Business Review, Forbes, The Economist and so on. He also has many unfinished writings; working titles of which are "History of Work," "American History," "The Next Economy," "The Wasted Century" and so on. Merely hearing the titles, I can't wait to read them. Drucker is so busy that he needs another body. He will not run out of themes when he gets to be over 100 years old. Drucker was deeply moved when he listened to Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Falstaff" (1893) at the renowned Opera House in Hamburg at the age of eighteen. And he came to know that Verdi wrote it at eighty and commented when asked why he produced such a big masterpiece at that age, "I was not satisfied yet." Drucker passed by eighty and now has passed by ninety. When he is asked which his best book is, he keeps answering "the next one." Drucker rewrites his manuscripts many times. In case of simultaneous publication worldwide, he sends me his manuscript every time he finishes a chapter. He sometimes deletes the parts that I have already translated and thought masterpiece. Drucker, however, only seeks the best. What he says rings a bell with us. Besides, when we get older and experienced more, it recalls us a new finding. Drucker once said that Dante and Goethe give everyone joy and insight regardless of age. Drucker himself is such an existence. For the present I am awaiting his manuscript, 'The Next Society' which is going to be placed in The Economist, and will be part of his new book to be published next spring. Meanwhile, I am editing a newly abridged version of "Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices" (1975). In these twenty-six years, I could see more in the book and decided to edit, re-translate and publish it as an essential version of Drucker's "Management" for his fans in Japan. | ||
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Two books to recommend: "The Practice of Management" (1954), Diamond "Managing for Results" (1964), Diamond |
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