by Elizabeth M. Ferrarini

For 16 months before  his death, Elizabeth Haas Edersheim was given unprecedented access to Peter Drucker, widely regarded as the father of modern management. At Drucker's request, Edersheim, a former partner at McKinsey & Company, spoke with him about the development of modern business throughout his life, andI how it continues to grow and change at an ever-increasing rate. Edersheim's book, The Definite Drucker -- Challenges for Tomorrow's  Executives - Final Advice from the Father of Modern Management, captures his visionary management concepts, applies them to the key business risks and opportunities of the coming decades, and imparts his views on current business practices, economic changes, and trends.

Enterpriseleadership.org recently sat down with Edersheim to discuss how Peter Drucker might have responded to questions about technology, innovation, and C-level executives. She speaks from the point of view of having read and re-read Drucker's books and spending many hours interviewing him. She says, "He would often surprise everyone with his thinking."

EL: Peter Drucker believed that leaders must focus on people, especially what influence the CEO has on his/her people. Some great CEOs, such as Steve Jobs of Apple and Larry Ellison of Oracle, are known to be hard on their employees. What would do you think Peter Drucker would have said about tough CEOs?

EE: First of all, the CEO is an American invention modeled after the president of the U.S. There's no comparable thing elsewhere in the world, except the export of the American CEO. In Europe, several senior executives come together as a collaborative team. Each executive reports to a board.

The CEO's role is to provide strategic moral and human leadership with the right balance. In the US, you have this challenge to both lead and to create collaboration. Some people are more visionary, but don't create collaboration. Often times, their companies will fail when they leave because they haven't a team underneath them. Jack Welch was hard, but he absolutely had a bench. You need to be attracting the right talent for the team. In other words, are you building successors?

It's not bad to be tough on people, but you don't want to be abusive. Because you want to build their strengths and to make their weaknesses irrelevant, you don't want to undermine your confidence in them, and their ability to do what they do well.

EL: Peter Drucker was definitely an advocate of innovative technology. How do you think he would've viewed the role of chief information officer in a multi-national company? What advice might he have given to someone in this position?

EE: He didn't talk about the CIO. He did spend some time on the CFO. He said the CFO was the least knowledgeable person in the company because s/he always looks backwards. In some ways, the CIO has an opportunity to be the forward engine of an organization, but, on the other hand, the CIO can get caught up in chasing down problems too. The CIO has a huge opportunity for making an organization successful. I think Peter might say, "You need to be looking forward always, and executing against yesterday's requirements."

EL: How did Peter Drucker feel about formal best practices such as  Six Sigma or Lean?

EE: He often talked about what we can learn from others. As far as Lean and Six Sigma go, Peter worked with the two men who came up with the concepts of Lean and Six Sigma --  W. Edwards Deming and Joseph M. Juran. The Japanese loved all three men.

Peter felt that if you get too close inside, you only get cost. You really need to be looking outside and linking with customers. Again, you need this balance. Best practices can help you learn. Pushing things so they are better internally is good, but it's not sufficient. You can't loose sight of other critical areas, such are as your customers' needs. How are you providing them with value?

EL: Peter Drucker talked about giving employees some autonomy and allowing them to contribute by asking the question, "What can I contribute?" How do you provide information technology workers with autonomy when they work on very well-defined projects?

EE: If you step back for a second, the question is really, how can they find ways to contribute? For example, if the end product is very well defined, there has to be a feedback loop. Ideally, they are part of the definition of the end product. Given how much information is embedded in product, services, and what is done, the IT group might not be part of the definition of that requirement. That doesn't work today.

Toyota has its engineers find solutions to problems. In 2003, when Toyota was redesigning the Sienna, the engineers in North American drove across highways in the U.S., high crowns in Canada, and dirt roads in Mexico. Engineers observed there is greater distances between cities in the U.S. Americans need to be able to eat in the car, and load the van at Home Depot. Engineers took this information back and provided feedback about what the design needed to be. The Sienna became the number one minivan in 2004.

EL: In The Practice of Management, Peter Drucker talks about the importance of regular face-to-face meetings between managers and their employees. How did he view how technology has, in many cases, replaced face-to-face communication?

EE: He talked a lot about the impact of technology on face-to-face communications. He was all about community, but he never walked away from discontinuities and new realities. In one of our conversations, Peter remembered how the kids in the 50s, 60s, and 70s used to come out and play every evening. He said that today, if kids come out at all, they usually have their cellphones or Game Boys with them. They play with electronics, not with each other. He was concerned about their ability to have face time.

Email is an important change. It can be a great mechanism. If Steven Hawking was born 20 years earlier, he never could've communicated with us. The new communication mechanism lets one be more inclusive to more people in different kinds of ways. On the other hand, face to face is a human way of exhibiting to someone that they have value. It's a huge way of understanding at a different level. You don't want to abuse it. I have sat in plenty of two-hour meetings when nothing got done. Technology facilitates a different kind of connection, but it doesn't replace face to face.

EL: What would Peter Drucker have said about whether or not the U.S.  is falling short with its own global leadership?

EE: I asked him the same question. He would've said that we aren't the global leader anymore. We're one of many leaders. Our first challenge is to accept our new role. It creates a different kind of mindset. We need to be investing in the needs of tomorrow so we can create opportunities as a country. We need to be the place where entrepreneurs want to be, and where technology wants to come.

EL: What role does information technology play in helping a company  carry out its business strategy to stay competitive?

EE: Information isn't in the backroom of a company. It's an integral part of what a company is today: it's part of product, the service, and the way we put things together. It lets people and companies link. It's the connector. I can't imagine a strategy that doesn't embrace an information component. Information lets us do so much more.

EL: What are some of the ways an organization can promote  innovation?

EE: Innovation is a discipline about how we do everything. That needs to be a formal process. There needs to be a manner or mechanism for letting ideas happen, evaluating them, for picking where we are investing, and allocating resources, and not allocating resources to yesterday's problems all the time. It needs to be an exclusive part of what a company is doing.

Elizabeth M. Ferrarini is a writer from Boston,  Massachusetts. Reach her at elizabethferrarini@yahoo.com.