Friday, August 7, 2020

Quote of the Day (Peter Drucker, on Why Intellectuals and Managers Need Each Other)


“Most, if not all, educated persons will practice their knowledge as members of an organization. The educated person will therefore have to prepare to live and work simultaneously in two cultures, that of the intellectual, the specialist who focuses on words and ideas, and that of the manager, who focuses on people and work. Intellectuals need their organization as a tool; it enables them to practice their techne, their specialized knowledge. Managers see knowledge as a means to the end of organizational performance. Both are right. They are poles rather than contradictions. Indeed, they need each other. The intellectual's world, unless counterbalanced by the manager, becomes one in which everybody ‘does his own thing’ but nobody does anything. The manager's world becomes bureaucratic and stultifying without the offsetting influence of the intellectual.”— Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005) , “The Rise of the Knowledge Society,” The Wilson Quarterly, Spring 1993

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