Major media mark the Drucker Centennial

A number of major publications, including The Wall Street JournalThe EconomistFinancial Times, and Inc. magazine, have marked the Drucker Centennial, the global celebration of Peter Drucker’s 100th birthday.

In its article, The Wall Street Journal hailed Drucker as “the most influential management thinker of the past century.”

The Economist, for its part, declared that Drucker’s “writing remains startlingly relevant.” It also noted that two institutions “are dedicated to keeping the flame alive: the Peter Drucker and Masatoshi Ito Graduate School of Management and the Drucker Institute.” The Institute, it added, “acts as the hub of a global network of Drucker Societies that are trying to apply his principles.”

The Financial Times covered the Drucker Global Forum in Vienna, Austria. Its piece featured the comments of two leading management thinkers—C.K. Prahalad and Charles Handy. Prahalad, the paper reported, “said that, in his opinion, no other person has had the impact on the practice of management that Drucker has,” while “Handy observed that, even when he felt he had provided some new insight into the challenge of management, he would invariably discover that Drucker had already written at some length along similar lines, often dozens of years earlier.”

Inc. magazine had some fun with its readers, providing them with an alphabetical listing (from A to Z) of people, places and concepts drawn from Drucker’s life and works. Inc. also cited authors Ken Blanchard and Jim Collins, who spoke earlier this month at Drucker Centennial Week events in Claremont and Los Angeles. About 1,000 people attended various activities during the week, and another 8,000 watched some of the speeches and lectures via the Internet.

The Los Angeles Times, meanwhile, also weighed in, with a review of the Japanese art exhibition that kicked off Drucker Centennial Week. And earlier, Harvard Business Review also highlighted the Drucker Centennial.