OK you Christian slaves, servants, stewards, it’s time to get back down to business. We know who we are, what we are, what we are (supposed to be) like, and who we report to. Clearly, our job is MANAGEMENT or did you forget that already.
You all remember the most famous management guru of all time don’t you?? Born in Austria and became a naturalized US citizen in 1943. He died a while back at the age of 95. He was regarded as the father of modern management and is especially well known for the concept of “management by objectives”. He has written 31 books including even two novels. His books have been translated into more than 20 languages. Various biographical material describe him as a business thinker, extensive consulting work with some of America’s largest corporations, a long academic career, an editorial columnist for the Wall Street Journal and frequent contributor to the prestigious Harvard Business Review. Are you impressed yet. I’m talking about Peter Drucker, a really smart guy. What’s interesting to me, in the little bit of reading I have done about Peter, is that not much is said about his success as an actual manager on the front line, down in the trenches.
However, all you people, you MBAs, entrepreneurs, business owners, supervisors, department heads, leaders of various kinds, teachers, salespeople, wives-and-mothers know all about what management actually involves. You do it every day. So this first new exercise should be really easy for you. In fact, you can probably define management off the top of your head, without consulting your Webster’s. That’s great. You won’t have any trouble filling in the blanks below but in case you do, just get out your Webster’s and see what it says:
What is management? Define it: __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Here are some things my dictionary says we will do when we manage something:
When we manage something we will __________it.
When we manage something we will __________ it.
When we manage something we will __________ it.
When we manage something we will __________ it.
We will render something or someone ______.We will treat something with ________.
We will achieve some __________ or ___________.
We will carry on or conduct __________ _________.
We will bring about __________ by _____________.
And my personal favorite definition of management is:
The judicious use of _________ to accomplish ___________.
Or more traditionally, the wise use of ____________ to accomplish _______________.