A CONVERSATION WITH PETER F. DRUCKER & PETER M. SENGE -

LEADING IN A TIME OF CHANGE

by the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management (2001), New York

Highlights of the videotaped conversation between Peter Drucker and Peter Senge

The following extracts are taken from the “Viewer’s Workbook”. You are welcome to read the whole conversation and exercises contained in this Workbook, which is available in our Library.

If you wish to watch the video, or to organize a group viewing and training session for your organization in our Library, please discuss with us.

Peter Drucker: … You can’t manage change. You can only be ahead of it. You can only meet it…

Peter Drucker: … You must systematically abandon. Every three years, every organization should sit down and look at every product and services and every policy and say, “If we didn’t do this already, knowing what we now do, would we go and do it?”

Peter Drucker: …But they need to accept that the time to get rid of a product is not when it no longer produces but when somebody says it still has five good years; that’s the time to say, “Cut.”

Peter Senge: …There is a difference between creating and problem solving. I think our enterprises are so dominated by an ethic of problem solving that it really undermines the notion of creating…We spend a lot of our time fixing unimportant problems…

Peter Drucker: …All the talk about lacking creativity is a cop-out. There is no lack of creativity. But we are doing our level best in most organizations to squelch it. Most organizations are not willing to experiment…

Peter Drucker:…You have to be ready for unexpected opportunities. That is an attitude at the top…

Peter Senge: …In creating something, a lot of the most important developments are what you didn’t expect. And it’s how you recognize and deal with surprise that matters. You have to appreciate the unexpected.

Peter Drucker: …Identify the top performers, the ones who are really engaged – and work with them. The rest will follow.

Peter Drucker: …The thing that nonprofits can do is attract and mobilize and hold volunteers, which businesses will have to learn in respect to knowledge workers …

Summary of the central ideas in the Peter Drucker and Peter Senge conversation

  • The discipline of planned abandonment: the need to shed those programs or investments that no longer will grow so that we can devote our energies to new opportunities
  • The need to focus attention on and invest resources in opportunities rather than problems
  • The importance of preserving values of the institution, so as to create the trust necessary for people undergoing massive change
  • The need for organizations to learn how to recruit and retain knowledge workers.

Source: “Leading in Time of Change” Viewer’s Workbook, by the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management (2001), New York

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