given laws as Karl Marx or Oswald Spengler suggested.
16
Nevertheless, it can be said that the human being has changed very
little during the course of recorded history. The statements by Plato,
Aristotle, or Seneca about the human being and his/her behavior
are as accurate today as they were in ancient times. We therefore gain
valuable insight when we interpret current developments and the
future in light of historical analogies. This is a perfect description of
Peter Drucker’s great strength – and also of the most notable
weakness of nearly all management authors. Their knowledge of
history is typically sporadic, superficial, or totally nonexistent. In
contrast to those who have dubbed themselves specialists in
entrepreneurial history but only cover a small portion of this field,
Drucker possessed a much broader foundation of historical
knowledge. Without this type of historical understanding and
consciousness, it becomes easy in management to fall victim to the
current buzzwords or trends of the day. The comments of the
philosopher George Santayana that history will repeat itself for those
who do not want to learn from it are perhaps especially pertinent for
management, which often purports to create something new but it is
really only serving old wine in new wineskins.
Peter Drucker taught us using history as his tool. He held a mirror
in front of us that opens up new perspectives and helps us to better
understand the future. This brings us back to Soren Kierkegaard,
who said, “Life can only be understood by looking back, but can only
be lived by looking forward.” Precisely because he was a man of the
past, Peter Drucker shone as a thinker of the future.
*
HERMANN SIMON is founder and chairman of Simon, Kucher &
Partners Strategy & Marketing Consultants, Bonn, Boston, Frankfurt,
London, Milan, Munich, Paris, Tokyo, Vienna, Warsaw and Zurich. Simon
is a leading strategy, marketing and pricing expert, he consults to corporations
worldwide. Simon has been on the editorial boards of numerous scientific
journals both in the USA and in Europe. He is a director in several
corporations and serves on the board of trustees of several foundations. In the
past, he was Professor for Management Science and Marketing at the
Universities of Mainz and Bielefeld and a Visiting Professor at Harvard
Business School, Stanford University, London Business School, INSEAD,
Keio University Tokyo and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Simon’s more than 30 books include the world bestsellers Hidden Champions
(published in 14 languages) and Power Pricing (published in 12 languages),
Think!, Strategy for Competition, Strategy and Corporate Culture. In the
survey conducted in 2005 by Winfried Weber & Partner, Simon was named
the second most influential management thinker in the German-speaking
countries, after Peter Drucker.
1
Peter F. Drucker, Management Challenges for the 21st Century, New York:
Harper Business 1999.
2
Peter F. Drucker, Adventures of a Bystander, New York: Harper & Row 1978.
3
Stefan Zweig, Die Welt von gestern – Erinnerungen eines Europäers,
Stockholm: Bermann-Fischer 1944.
4
Karl Popper, Die offene Gesellschaft und ihre Feinde, Stuttgart: UTB 1992.
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