Management Fireworks At The Drucker Forum?
Last night we travelled from Amsterdam to Vienna—to attend the 10th edition of the Global Peter Drucker Forum. This is the world’s leading management conference, and we have been invited by Zhang Ruimin, CEO of Haier.
We are excited. This is the tenth annual get-together, and the line-up is spectacular. A gathering of the world’s most influential executives and management gurus holds the prospect of some fireworks.
Peter Drucker
The forum honors Drucker’s legacy. He is often described as “the founder of modern management.”
His books explored how people organize themselves in business, government and non-profit sectors. He predicted major developments of the last century, like privatization, knowledge work, lifelong learning, and decentralization.
More importantly, Drucker stressed the practicality of his ideas. He urged audiences to take the important-but-difficult step from ideas to action. He would ask: “What will you do differently tomorrow morning?” Or, “What are you going to change?”
Sounds like our kind of guy.
Interesting sessions
Drucker’s practical focus is why the forum aims to provide motivating visions of how things could be better. In other words, visions of how to make work more fun. Of all the sessions, here are the three we most look forward to:
1. Organization of the future
This focuses on The Human-centred Organization of the Future, a topic dear to our hearts. Speakers include bucket-list heroes Rendanheyi model.
2. Business in society
The first day features a session on What Business Must Do Now in Society. We want to hear what Jean-Dominique Senard (CEO of Michelin), Vineet Nayar (former CEO of HCL Technologies) and Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands have their say on this topic.
3. The long term
Three heavyweights focus on Managing for the Long Term. We will hear Isabelle Kocher (CEO Engie), Paul Polman (CEO Unilever) and Roger L. Martin (Thinkers50 #1 management thinker). We are curious to hear their ideas.
Interesting talks
These sound stimulating:
- Tim Brown (President and CEO of IDEO) on The Very Human Pursuit of Innovation.
- Isaac Getz (Professor, ESCP Europe Business School) on Human Potential.
- Henry Mintzberg (Professor, McGill University) on Should Managers be Activists?
- Rita Gunther McGrath (Professor, Columbia Business School) and Alexander Osterwalder on Strategy in the Face of Reality.
- Bjarte Bogsnes (Chairman, Beyond Budgeting Institute) on Managing Like You Have Skin in the Game.
- Rosabeth Moss Kanter (Professor, Harvard Business School) on Finding Leadership Balance.
Update
We anticipate these sessions will be highlights at this year’s forum. Several feature inspiring folk we have met. We will meet up with them again. We will make sure to let you know how the forum influences our thinking.
Stay tuned!
