Peter Drucker and Prudence/Good Judgment

By his life’s work, Peter Drucker instituted the modern role of “Management Consultant”. He was invited to study, for two years, all the departments of General Motors, at the time one of the largest companies in the world. From his research he wrote “Concept of the Corporation”. His 1954 book “The Practice of Management” was voted the third most influential management book of the 20th century in a poll of the Fellows of the Academy of Management. He received 25 honorary doctoral degrees from many countries’ universities. He consulted with the largest American corporations. In 2018, Drucker was named the world's most influential business thinker on the Thinkers50.com list. Drucker was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by US President George W. Bush on July 9, 2002.

One of his concepts was “Management by objectives”. This led to the development of the practice of Strategic Management with an “idealized” long-term plans, then 3 years plans, then perpetual revisions of one-year plans. This has been implemented at Google who’s idealized long term goal is “to assume leadership position in information technology industry, and in the global information”.

Management by objectives is the implementation of a philosophical concept of “teleology”, that is to say the study of the future goal in order to define what is today’s good behavior. Practically, in managerial terms, it is concerned with identifying the most desirable goals for the corporation then identifying the means and developing the resources to reach these goals.

Management by Objectives is essentially the implementation of the Cardinal Virtue called Prudence which is nowadays better conveyed as “good judgment” and is an essential, if not dominant, part of the Alexander the Great Personality Test. --- goAlexTest.com