The Definitive Drucker: Challenges For Tomorrow's Executives -- Final Advice From the Father of Modern Management
In a concise introduction to the philosophy of the 20th century's most  distinguished business theoretician, Edersheim explores the insights that have  shaped management thinking from the 1940s through the 1990s. Drucker himself  chose Edersheim to interview him, based on her previous book (McKinsey's Marvin Bower, about the man who built the  global consulting firm McKinsey &amp; Company), but he had in mind a biography  of his ideas, not a traditional bio. Edersheim blends brief summaries of  Drucker's thinking on various management topics (innovation, customers,  leadership, decision making) with examples of how his ideas have been practiced  at specific organizations and comments from contemporary business leaders. She  doesn't try to trace the development of Drucker's ideas over time; instead, she  focuses on the challenges managers face today and tries to cull useful advice  for tackling them from Drucker's writings. Those seeking a broad intellectual  and social context for Drucker's work might prefer Jack Beatty's 1998The World According to Peter Drucker, while  aspiring managers should turn instead to one of Drucker's own books, whose  intellectual rigor and lively prose make them immensely readable to this day.(Feb.)Copyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.