Peter Drucker's Five Most Important Questions. Peter F. Drucker
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or a small entrepreneurial start-up, a large national government agency or one that serves your local town or regional heartland, or a billion-dollar nonprofit foundation or a $100,000 homeless shelter. What matters is commitment to the mission, commitment to the customer, commitment to the future, and commitment to innovation. Self-discovery is an introspective and courageous journey that gives organizations and leaders the energy and courage to grow.
In this enhanced edition of the indispensable tool, we have considered the context of our times, the advent of the B Corporation, which allows organizations to account for the commitments they are making to their customers, their employees, the environment, and the community at large, the impact we are seeing from the Millennial generation – a generation for whom To Serve Is To Live is not a foreign language. We have convened emerging and experienced leaders of the future who offer us new insight to these powerful five questions.
We are deeply grateful for the generous gift of our respected and admired contributors:
• Col. Bernard Banks, who explores the importance of examining an organization's results through the prism of organizational and personal values.
• Lauren Maillian Bias, who describes the interdependence of personal success and professional success.
• Juana Bordas, who considers how best to measure the effectiveness of an organization's planning process and how those who want to start their own ventures can apply the lessons she learned from successfully starting up Colorado's largest Hispanic-serving organization.
• Adam Braun, who explores the nature of achieving one's goals and how the finish line to living the perfect life does not exist.
• Jim Collins, who describes how an organization's strategy reflects the fundamental tension between continuity and change and how organizations excellent at adapting to change know what should not change.
• Caroline Ghosn, who states that the most important thing you can do as a leader is to articulate a vision and that translating the vision into action requires a clear plan – something tangible that people can make their own.
• Marshall and Kelly Goldsmith, who explore the personal application of the question, “What is our mission?” and have found through their research that creating an effective personal mission requires taking into account both happiness and meaning.
• Nadira Hira, who suggests that more than ever before, companies today have access to a constant stream of feedback in the form of social media but that too few know how to use it effectively.
• Philip Kotler, who implores us to better understand who our key customers are and plan to please them instead of trying to please everyone in an unfocused way.
• Jim Kouzes, who suggests that everything exemplary leaders do is about creating value for their customers.
• Raghu Krishnamoorthy, who explains how General Electric constantly reimagines and reinvents itself to respond to shifting customer needs and to remain relevant in today's fast-changing global markets.
• Joan Snyder Kuhl, who describes who the Millennials are, what they want and how Drucker's enduring wisdom is as relevant to them today as it was for their predecessors.
• Mike and Kass Lazerow, who announce the arrival of the customer revolution – a radical shift of power from companies to their connected customers – and how companies, and the people who lead them, can and must jump onboard.
• Luke Owings, who cautions readers not to ignore the needs of supporting customers and explains how the ability to recognize their needs and motivations can propel the organization's mission forward.
• Michael Radparvar, who tells the story about the origins of the popular Holstee manifesto and how this manifesto transformed into the company's own mission statement.
• V. Kasturi Rangan, who describes what makes a good plan and the importance of monitoring plan execution and closing the feedback loop for the next planning cycle.
• Judith Rodin, who asserts that no plan can be considered complete – or satisfactory – until it produces measurable outcomes and incorporates mechanisms that allow midcourse corrections based on results.
Their thoughtful perspectives will inspire you, and we know you will be as appreciative of their generous gifts of wisdom, experience, and intellectual energy as we are. The original The Five Most Important Questions emerged from the wisdom of Drucker. We once again share Drucker's wisdom, this time enriched with the thoughts of new great leaders. We are deeply grateful to you, our readers and supporters, fellow travelers on the journey to organizational self-discovery.
Introduction
Peter F. Drucker often asked those he worked with a simple question: “What do you want to be remembered for?” At the Frances Hesselbein Leadership Institute, we unanimously agree that it's vitally important that we play a role in inspiring the next generation of leaders. In 2009, the Hesselbein Institute partnered with the University of Pittsburgh to launch the Hesselbein Global Academy for Student Leadership and Civic Engagement, which has already convened 300 talented students from every continent and exposed them to Peter F. Drucker's and Frances Hesselbein's work.
Today's youngest generation – known as the Millennials or Generation Y, born between 1980 and 2000 – are not only the largest generation yet but also the most educated and most diverse. The reach of technology and ease of global travel have magnified the creativity of their dreams in many ways. The digital and social media movement from traditional cable to Facebook and Twitter put them in touch with the rest of the world where they can wear, consume, and interact with global brands and causes in new and unprecedented ways. They developed networks of friends who were not neighbors or in their gym class but from faraway parts of the world. They may never meet these friends face to face, yet the connections are highly influential upon their lives. They have developed a global sensibility, which is why I often refer to Millennials as the first global generation.
The young leaders we meet are driven, generous, and globally minded self-starters. They see the world differently, with a relentlessly positive attitude. At the same time, they are facing record unemployment and underemployment, and they feel very misunderstood in the workplace and media.
What we have learned is that Millennials are craving guidance, simple tools, and mentors to help them focus, achieve their potential, and pursue their dreams of making a difference in the world. Which brings us to this book. Is Drucker's management philosophy still relevant to today's young talent and tenured leadership? Yes! Can it make a difference? We've seen it happen. It's hard to believe that words written in the mid-twentieth century might still be applicable to today's business challenges and opportunities, but we provide examples throughout the book to prove just that.
Drucker says that “self-assessment is the first action required of leadership,” so it makes sense that the five questions tool is read by young talent who are on the path to one day leading organizations, and re-read by experienced leaders in diverse sectors. This basic framework has served leaders in every sector for decades and is the perfect companion for Millennials and management today. Our contributors shine a light on several examples of how the self-assessment process can serve any purpose and stimulate progress.
The war for global talent is in full swing. Executives and organizations in every sector are looking for strategies to amplify the productivity of their younger workforce and grow their skills toward sustainable leadership. Our hope in launching this new edition is to build awareness and cultivate a new community of Drucker fans who will communicate using this basic language of The Five Questions. This can also be a foundational tool for new-manager and leadership-development programs. Drucker's thought leadership can serve as a universal, collaborative platform for developing ideas and strategic plans within a multigeneration team in any environment and sector. Just the act of reflecting on Drucker's influential insights can promote