North County Times
Drucker Institute chapter forms in North County
Group seeks to advance management guru's principles
By Jeff Rowe
03/08/2010
A group of Vista business people recently spent a lunch break in a movie theater, where they were told it was a combination of irresponsible and unethical business practices, poor stewardship, a failure to innovate and greed that helped plunge the nation into the Great Recession.
The business people loved it.
"I thought it was awesome," said Susan Baldwin, an Escondido accountant. She said she found much of the information disheartening, but was buoyed by the prescriptive elements of the presentation.
Leading the program was Lawrence Greenspun, a program manager at the Claremont-based Drucker Institute, named for Peter Drucker, a prolific author, teacher and ethicist on management practices.
Greenspun spoke of a "responsibility gap," which he defined as a systems and moral failure that dragged the national economy to near collapse.
"Companies traded values for profits," said Greenspun. Moreover, he said, three times as many chief executives as before the recession now say they are unprepared for the future.
The event in Vista was part of the launch of the Drucker Society of North San Diego County chapter, which is headed by Mark Evilsizer, an engineering planner for Northrop Grumman Systems in Rancho Bernardo. Years ago, he took a few courses Drucker taught and found them to be inspiring, life-changing experiences.
Drucker died in 2005 and surely would have been disappointed in mega-bonuses and other excesses seen during the run-up to the Great Recession.
"Any organization needs a commitment to values and their constant reaffirmation," Drucker wrote.
In all, Drucker wrote 39 books, which have been translated into 30 languages. His central themes focused on the social nature of organizations, their responsibility to contribute to the overall health of society, and the role managers and leaders play in that process.
Drucker also explored how companies can maintain high ideals, develop and nurture workers, foster lifelong learning and becomes good citizens. All of those practices will improve quality and productivity, he taught.
Tens of thousands of executives around the world fervently believe in the Drucker way. Among the companies that embrace his principles: General Electric and Google, Greenspun said.
As the Drucker Institute strives to spread its founder's principles around the world, Evilsizer found an opportunity to form a chapter in North San Diego County.
The chapter was chartered in January and met for the first time in February. "We want to help people get back to their core values and create environments that spur innovation," he said.
Rick Wartzman, the institute's executive director, said the society is less concerned with building a network of chapters than it is with extending Drucker's principles.
"We want to focus on lives we touch and what were the results of that change," he said. The chapter joins 33 others around the world.
The Vista Chamber of Commerce expects the area chapter to thrive and spur the change that Wartzman speaks about.
Tough times are when businesses need to be more innovative, said Cliff Kaiser, chairman of the Vista chamber and owner of a computer consulting company.
The North San Diego County chapter is scheduled to meet in Vista on the third Wednesday of the month.
Visit www.druckerinstitute.com and www.vistachamber.org.
Call staff writer Jeff Rowe at 760-740-5417.
Copyright North County Times
