‘Drucker Apps’ 6/11/10: Name Your Game

The Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University today added a new topic to Drucker Apps, an ongoing conversation about bettering society through effective management and responsible leadership.

This latest addition to Drucker Apps was inspired by today’s kick off of the 2010 FIFA World Cup just as the NBA finals head to a pivotal fifth game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics. Drucker Apps explores the business lessons that sports can teach us about teamwork.

Taking part in this running dialogue will be former UCLA basketball player and television executive Andy Hill; Portuguese management writer Jorge Vasconcellos e Sá, a professor at the University of Lisbon and a trained soccer coach; and others with insights into the art of coordination and collaboration.

“There are only three kinds of teams,” Peter Drucker wrote. The first, he said, is the sort that plays doubles tennis—where “each member adapts to . . . the other member.” The second is more like soccer. “Each player has a fixed position; but the whole moves together,” Drucker explained. Finally, there is the baseball team “in which all the members have fixed positions.”

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