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The Practice of Management
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A classic since its publication in 1954, The Practice of Management was the first book to look at management as a whole and being a manager as a separate responsibility. The Practice of Management created the discipline of modern management practices. Readable, fundamental, and basic, it remains an essential book for students, aspiring managers, and seasoned professionals.
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Paperback, 416 pages
Published
October 3rd 2006
by Harper Business
(first published 1954)
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It is available on Amazon for as low as $4 used. It also may be available at your local library.
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This book was written 60 years ago and it feels like most of the Drucker's thoughts are still of the moment. Whats more, in many modern books about management you can notice that authors "discover america" again. For some insights it took decades until they were proved empirically and described wider therefore more commonly used. An example here can be "focusing on strengths and managing weaknesses" which is the key point in "First, break all the rules" book that is based on Gallup research of t
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So everything people write about manangement was already known 50 years ago. That speaks both for Drucker and against decades of research on the matter. Read this if you're doing something that has remotely to do with management.
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Nov 07, 2018
Shagun Tripathi
rated it
it was amazing
Shelves:
all-time-favourites,
management-classics
At the onset, I take his opportunity to mention that Drucker is, by far my favourite management writer and guru of all times and this book has been an excellent read. The reason is simple: he is direct, incisive in analysis and writes with unparalleled clarity. His erudition is observable in simplicity as opposed to complexity, a feat that his contemporaries will find difficult to achieve (I mention this because I am reading him after Barnard and Simon, both stalwarts of management, but none the
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Most books on management are dull, repetitive, unoriginal, and full of self-promotion. Drucker's book is the original. This is the book to read if you want to learn about management, how it impacts people, how to do it better, and how it can go disastrously wrong.
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To some extent a product of its time with the emphasis on the scientific management styles dominant in post-war America, but also directly applicable to management today, as Drucker highlights again and again how central human character is and how little that has changed since time began.
It was good to see the development and original context of his seminal “management by objectives” theory but I also really appreciated the closing chapters on the challenges and opportunities of the future.
The ...more
It was good to see the development and original context of his seminal “management by objectives” theory but I also really appreciated the closing chapters on the challenges and opportunities of the future.
The ...more

Jan 31, 2008
Hongsno2522
is currently reading it
It's really a great book.
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I don't like his writing style but found his theories still pretty relevant today.
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Upon final consideration I have decided I will be unfair to this book. It's important to note if you're being unfair and in my position I felt the best review I could leave for this book would be so. Let me tell you why it's going to be unfair. Because my review is going to be written today, here and now, in the 21st century. Because it has to be. There is no way I can go back to the days of 1954 and give this book the review it earned. So here's my review: this book isn't very good.
It's general ...more
It's general ...more

TL;DR; Good book, I will read the unabridged version at some point.
I bought this audiobook when I first subscribed to Audible back in 2001 but for some reason, I never listened to it. I’ve been going through my library in order to get to those books that I have forgotten about, and since I was looking for a quick read, I thought this would be a good one to pick up today.
This audiobook feels like a series of bullet points on a PowerPoint, but I found most of the things he said to be kind of impor ...more
I bought this audiobook when I first subscribed to Audible back in 2001 but for some reason, I never listened to it. I’ve been going through my library in order to get to those books that I have forgotten about, and since I was looking for a quick read, I thought this would be a good one to pick up today.
This audiobook feels like a series of bullet points on a PowerPoint, but I found most of the things he said to be kind of impor ...more

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That's such a very good book about the management in any size of organization. Thanks so much Peter for your extreme contributions.
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The caption on one of the monthly magazines I subscribe to reads as follows, “tons of useful stuff” and the same is true about this book. I have read several books on management but none have put the subject in a clear perspective as one.
In the only you would expect him to, Drucker explores the concept of management is and how to practice it in this classic. I have now realised that management and managing are not the same things. I have also learned the role of manager and how what he does with ...more
In the only you would expect him to, Drucker explores the concept of management is and how to practice it in this classic. I have now realised that management and managing are not the same things. I have also learned the role of manager and how what he does with ...more

Here're my take-aways: Take-Aways
- The rise of management as an organizational discipline arguably is the most important business development of the 20th century.
- Large, complex organizations ultimately will fail without professional management.
- Management principles went into creating post-World War II’s Marshall Plan.
- Professional managers aid in planning and developing their firms’ basic missions.
- They set objectives for employees, organize processes, communicate important information, tr ...more
- The rise of management as an organizational discipline arguably is the most important business development of the 20th century.
- Large, complex organizations ultimately will fail without professional management.
- Management principles went into creating post-World War II’s Marshall Plan.
- Professional managers aid in planning and developing their firms’ basic missions.
- They set objectives for employees, organize processes, communicate important information, tr ...more

Well, I read this book because it is one of my class assignment. As my professor said "Wrote by Father of Management, this book change the Management concept at the current time", yes it did, but that's 60 years ago. Honestly I don't find it interesting as a leisure book nor informative as a text book.
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Jul 16, 2009
Alice_chen316
marked it as to-read
fantastic

Sep 23, 2010
Paramita
added it
wasn't my flavor of ice-cream
...more
topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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major changes shaking an organisation's dynamic business environment | 1 | 3 | Sep 26, 2013 02:21AM | |
Drucker Lives On! | 1 | 9 | Oct 13, 2008 03:47PM |
Peter Ferdinand Drucker was a writer, management consultant and university professor. His writing focused on management-related literature. Peter Drucker made famous the term knowledge worker and is thought to have unknowingly ushered in the knowledge economy, which effectively challenges Karl Marx's world-view of the political economy. George Orwell credits Peter Drucker as one of the only writer
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“True, the number of functional managers should always be kept at a minimum, and there should be the largest possible number of ‘general’ managers who manage an integrated business and are directly responsible for its performance and results. Even with the utmost application of this principle the great bulk of managers will remain in functional jobs, however. This is particularly true of the younger people. A”
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“Planning and doing are separate parts of the same job; they are not separate jobs. There is no work that can be performed effectively unless it contains elements of both. One”
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