Some directives for business and institutional managers, some
global-think for the Executive Board. As of 1980, Drucker sees 25
years of predictable economic growth at an end, and new strategies
called for. "Managing in turbulent times must begin with the
adjustment of the enterprise's figures to inflation"; financial
strength must be put before earnings; the decline of productivities
(capital, time, knowledge, physical resources) must be reversed.
The costs of staying in business are real costs, Drucker reasonably
concludes, regardless of "record profits." Looking ahead (with some
retrospective pats on the back), he broadens his scope. "Major
technological changes" will allow businesses to be larger or
smaller - and, properly, either leaders in a large market or
specialists "preempting a small ecological niche" (for the
untenability of an in-between position, witness Chrysler). But the
great "sea-change" that Drucker anticipates is the result of
population dynamics - a prospective labor shortage in the developed
world coupled with an incipient labor surplus in the developing
world. His answer is universal "production sharing": concentrating
labor-intensive stages of production in the developing world. The
objections to this trend - which range from the shrinkage of
entry-level blue-collar jobs in the U.S. (see Levison, in the 3/1
issue) to the upping of underemployment in developing nations (see
Hewlett, below) - have no place in Drucker's business-oriented
picture. (He can't, for instance, see that Youngstown, Ohio's,
redundant steel-workers have a problem: three years after the
closing of their big mill, most of them were working - even if not
for as much money, "and a good many part time.") But for his
constituency, he's a reliable guide also to other trends - notably,
growing economic intergration vis-a-vis growing political
fragmentation and the smart business response (world-oriented
management, a low profile, little local investment). And anyone
puzzled by last year's Nobel prizes in economics will learn that
Pittsburgh's Herbert Simon won his for showing that managers try to
find minimum acceptable solutions - solutions that neither optimize
nor maximize results, but "satisfice." So much, too, for Drucker's
latest go at managing the world from a swivel chair: it satisfices.
(Kirkus Reviews)
Managing in Turbulent Times tackles the key issues facing managers
in the 1990s: how to manage in rapidly changing environments. This
seminal and prophetic book laid the foundation for a generation of
writers on change management. This book concerns the immediate
future of business, society and the economy. The one certainty
about the times ahead, says Drucker, is that they will be turbulent
times. In turbulent times the first task of management is to make
sure of the organizations capacity for survival, to make sure of
its structural strength and soundness, its capacity to survive a
blow, to adapt to sudden change and to avail itself of new
opportunities. The author is concerned with action rather than
understanding, with decisions rather than analysis. It aims at
being a practical book for the decision maker, whether in the
private or the public sector.
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