First update. Provocation #1 about The Expertise Conundrum. Soon it will be 4 more years since I had the curiosity on this post “Is Drucker's Management Challenges for the Systemic Civilization on the opposite side force field of academic privile[d]ge?,” to look back to Peter F. Drucker's book "Management Challenges for the 21st Century." This time it is the 12th Global Peter Drucker Forum in Vienna - Austria, whose main theme is LEADERSHIP EVERYWHERE, but I will return to THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SOCIETY.
While Peter F. Drucker stated in the above mentioned book (see the post below) that LEADERSHIP was not among “TOMORROW’S “Hot” Issues – the crucial, central, life-and-death issues that are certain to be the major challenges of tomorrow,” LEADERSHIP EVERYWHERE that mutually reinforces THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SOCIETY emerges as we leap to The Wealth of Globalization away from The Wealth of Nations. In the meantime, with respect to THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SOCIETY, Paul Krugman’s "The Pin Factory Mystery," about David Warsh's book "Knowledge and The Wealth of Nations," ends as LEADERSHIP EVERYWHERE emerges with increasing returns to scale under The Wealth of Globalization.
To complement the above, next are some comments as of this moment under Provocation #1 ( https://www.druckerforum.org/blog/provocation-1-the-expertise-conundrum/ ):
Rita McGrath says:
July 31, 2020 at 6:11 pm
Many people fundamentally misunderstand the mechanism of scientific progress, which is to move on the basis of assumptions, learn something in an experimental way and then, on the basis of new information, take the next step. So the fact that “expert” advice changes should not come as a surprise to anyone who understands this process. What we need are leaders who can competently and patiently explain this to people.
José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, PhD. Replies to Rita McGrath:
July 31, 2020 at 6:55 pm
Is that *mechanism” able to address “Wicked Problems,” introduced in the article “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,” by HORST W. J. RITTEL and MELVIN M. WEBBER in 1973 for leaders to deal with COVID-19?
José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, PhD. says:
July 31, 2020 at 6:56 pm
The Macy Conferences were a set of meetings of scholars from various disciplines held in New York under the direction of Frank Fremont-Smith at the Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation starting in 1941 and ending in 1960. The explicit aim of the conferences was to promote meaningful communication across scientific disciplines, and restore unity to science. Was that a way to address the problems we still have with experts?
José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, PhD. Replies to himself:
August 4, 2020 at 12:25 pm
Please consider the response “Opportunity for Experts 2.0: an alternative for the #NewMacyMeeting ( https://medium.com/@gmh_upsa/opportunity-for-experts-2-0-an-alternative-for-the-newmacymeeting-d888720cdb5e )” to the story “Oportunidad para Expertos: Grandes Cambios, Circunstancias, Grados de Claridad y los Estados ( https://medium.com/@gmh_upsa/oportunidad-para-expertos-grandes-cambios-circunstancias-grados-de-claridad-y-los-estados-871513346a8c ).”
Chibuikem Anyanwu says:
August 1, 2020 at 1:44 am
The incident of Covid-19 coupled with the unprecedented manner through which it emerged on the global frontiers, particularly at a time when virtually all nations of the world are unprepared for its emergence proves to humans the need to foster a post-scientific alliance/synergy/commitment/integration.
Scientific premisses are necessary in times like this when “new normals”- the irreversible circumstances that live with us- like EIDs, are rife. A case study is drawn to even, the role of meteorologists in inferring at a certain season when a certain disease will be much or less( cases of malaria and Corona virus).
Leaders must “follow science backed by evidence-based management” to avoid consequences of death and a shrinking economy. Persons like Bolsonaro have learnt their lessons from the Corona virus pandemic. Covid-19 is a complex phenomenon no doubt, but in the face of mixed scientific reactions, facts and fallacies, the rudimentary approaches for it’s curtailment( pointing to the three C’s of transmission in a bid to lessen the effect of the “Pareto principle”) have helped nations.
Recently, Saudi Arabia has decided to cut it’s Official Selling Price of crude oil to reduce weak refining margins and cushion the effect of a benchmark in response to the effect of the pandemic on the economy.
Any leadership at this time that relegates the powers of scientific injunction will decimate the masses and shrink her economy.
José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, PhD. Replies to Chibuikem Anyanwu :
August 1, 2020 at 11:08 am
Thanks for highlighting to “follow science backed by evidence-based management” assumption of Provocation #1. Did Peter F. Drucker agree with such am assumption in his book “Management in Turbulent Times?
Richard Straub says: August 5, 2020 at 3:02 pm
I touched the subjects on “relying on experts” in a conversation with Julia Kirby and Steve Denning that Steve documented in the following article @Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2020/04/09/drucker-forum-2020-leadership-in-the-coronavirus-crisis/#6fa9eb1c58c0
My statement in this context: “it’s not about experts, who may be excellent managers in their field. To be a good leader you must be able to look beyond one highly specialized field of expertise. John Seely Brown has pointed out that we are now facing not just complex problems but “entangled” problems. The world is totally networked with entangled issues. You cannot solve them with a single big plan. You need also leaders who can see more than the technical problems, and see the people aspect and can use common sense and reason.”
José Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio, PhD. Replies to Richard Straub: August 6, 2020 at 2:57 pm
Dear Richard,
In a world where hardhead gatekeepers have been escalating since WWII to reduce democracy to the point that now China seems more democratic than what used to be The West, my synthesis of your “… conversation with Julia Kirby and Steve Denning” is that under The Wealth of Globalization context, we still have what are supposed to be leaders under The Wealth of Nations context of the Contemporary Age operating as managers while keeping potential leaders in lower contexts. That means that we lack the needed global leaders of the Cybernetic Age under The Wealth of Globalization to enable “leadership everywhere.” To do so, maybe it might be useful, for example, my humble most recent Medium response “Opportunity for Experts 2.0: an alternative for the #NewMacyMeeting ( https://medium.com/@gmh_upsa/opportunity-for-experts-2-0-an-alternative-for-the-newmacymeeting-d888720cdb5e ).”
After more than 17 years have passed since its first edition, I just had the curiosity to look back to Peter F. Drucker's book "Management Challenges for the 21st Century," with respect to the 8th Global Peter Drucker Forum 17 - 18 November 2016, Vienna - Austria, whose main theme is THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SOCIETY.
Are #GPDF16 @GDruckerForum's Management Challenges for the #SystemicCivilization on the opposite side force field..? https://t.co/wPcgThChHn pic.twitter.com/qYH0uj6YGB— Jose A Vanderhorst S (@gmh_upsa) October 14, 2016
My curiosity on THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SOCIETY emerged one day after I wrote the "One thought on The Tragedy of the Commons: An Emerging Risk to the Entrepreneurial Society, by Johan Roos” that for convenience is repeated at the end of this post. So I searched and found ENTREPRENEURIAL in the index on pages 37, 38, 191, 192, which correspond to section VII "The Inside Is Management Domain," of chapter 1, on "Management's New Paradigms" and section V "The Second Half of Your Life," of chapter 6 "Managing Oneself."
Instead of mentioning THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SOCIETY, what is mentioned is THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY, which seems to have superseeded the former. Although I saw interesting insights to help support the need to create the systemic civilization, I find more strategic to look to the whole introduction which is commented after each paragraph where somethng is highlighted.
Introduction: Tomorrow’s “Hot” Issues
Where, readers may ask, is the discussion of COMPETITIVE STRATEGY, of LEADERSHIP, of CREATVITY, of TEAMWORK, of TECHNOLOGY in a book on MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES? Where are the “HOT” ISSUES OF TODAY? But this is the very reason why they are not in this book. It deals exclusively with TOMORROW’S “Hot” Issues – the crucial, central, life-and-death issues that are certain to be the major challenges of tomorrow.
CERTAIN? Yes. For this is not a book of PREDICTIONS, not a book about the FUTURE. The challenges and issues discussed in it are already with us in every one of the developed countries and in most of the emerging ones (e.g., Korea or Turkey). They can already be identified, discussed, analyzed and prescribed for. Some people, someplace are already working on them. But so far very few organizations do, and very few executives. Those who do work on these challenges today, and thus prepare themselves and their institutions for the new challenges, will be the leaders and dominate tomorrow. Those who wait until these challenges have indeed become “hot” issues are likely to fall behind, perhaps never to recover.
Introduction continues:
This book is thus a Call for ActionComment 2. The call to action is transformational.
Introduction continues:
These challenges are not arising out of today. THEY ARE DIFFERENT. In most cases they are at odds and incompatible with what is accepted and successful today. We live in a period of PROFOUND TRANSITION – and the changes are more radical perhaps than even those that ushered in the “Second Industrial Revolution” of the middle of the 19th century, or the structural changes triggered by the Great Depression and the Second World War. READING this book will upset and disturb a good many people, as WRITING it disturbed me. For in many cases – for example, in the challenges inherent in the DISAPPEARING BIRTHRATE in the developed countries, or in the challenges to the individual, and to the employing organization, discussed in the final chapter on MANAGING ONESELF – the new realities and their demands require a REVERSAL of policies that have worked well for the last century and, even more, a change in the MINDSET of organizations as well as of individuals.
Drucker's insights was telling us that we needed to create a new future. In fact, at the end of the book he wrote "What this book actually dealt with is: THE FUTURE OF SOCIETY, where a change in mindset, like the one suggested in the post Why the Eurozone leaders must change their common sense first suggested (see image on the initial text of the post which now has 4 updates).
Introduction continues:
This is a MANAGEMENT BOOK. It intentionally leaves out BUSINESS CHALLENGES – even very important ones such as the question of whether the Euro will displace the U.S. dollar as the world’s key currency, or what will SUCCEED the 19th century’s most successful economic inventions, the commercial bank and the investment bank. It intentionally does not concern itself with ECONOMICS – even though the basic MANAGEMENT changes (e.g., the emergence of knowledge as the economy’s key resource) will certainly necessitate radically new economic theory and equally radically new economic policy. This book does not concern itself with politics – not even with such crucial questions as whether Russia can and will recover as a political, military and economic power. It sticks with MANAGEMENT ISSUES.Comment 4. Although all of what the book intentionally leaves out is critical, the most critical of them all is politics. The reason I select it, is that it strongly supports the main assumption (above politics) of the post Can 10 questions above politics help forecast a new world order in 2015? Version 0.0. That post has 8 updates which means it is no longer Version 0.0. More on politics next.
Introduction continues:
There are good reasons for this. The issues this book discusses, the new social, demographic and economic REALITIES, are not issues that GOVERNMENT can successfully deal with. They are issues that will have profound impact on politics; but they are not political issues. They are not issues the Free Market can deal with. They are also not issues of ECONOMIC THEORY or even of ECONOMIC POLICY. They are issues that only MANAGEMENT and the INDIVIDUAL knowledge worker, professional or executive can tackle and resolve. They are surely going to be debated in the domestic politics of every developed and every emerging country. But their resolution will have to take place within the individual organization and will have to be worked out by the individual organization’s MANAGEMENT – and by every single individual knowledge worker (and especially by every single executive) within the organization.Comment 5. Here we should contrast what's programmed in "PLENARY 5" of the 8th Global Peter Drucker Forum, which is set up as "The State as Enabler, Investor, Innovator," which is contradicting Drucker in that "GOVERNMENT can successfully deal with." To see the contradiction, "PLENARY 5" has the following description:
Traditionally, the state has been seen as an impediment to entrepreneurial activity because of its determination to protect social interests through sometimes onerous regulation. Alternatively it is derided as a player attempting to pick winners with well-meaning but inept industrial policy. What is the right role for the state, and the right focus of policymakers’ interventions? And – because the private sector is not the only realm where innovation is needed – how can governments cultivate more entrepreneurial innovation in their own planning and delivery of services to citizens?Introduction continues:
A great many of these organizations will, of course, be businesses. And a great many of the individual knowledge workers affected by these challenges will be employees of business or working with business. Yet this is a MANAGEMENT book rather than a BUSINESS management book. The challenges it presents affect ALL organizations of today’s society. In fact, some of them will affect nonbusinesses even more, if only because a good many nonbusiness organizations – the university, for instance, or the hospital, let alone the government agency – are more rigid and less flexible than businesses are, and far more deeply rooted in the concepts, the assumptions, the policies of yesterday or even, as are universities, in the assumptions of the day before yesterday (i.e., of the 19th century).Comment 6. Here Drucker anticipated the main issues that makes the 'Groupthink' of the industrial civilization business statu quo more difficult to deal with, as the university is "more rigid and less flexible than businesses are, and far more deeply rooted... in the assumptions of the day before yesterday." As someone apparently writing on the opposite side of the force field of academic privilege my questions here is: How large is the participation of university professors in the 8th Global Peter Drucker Forum?
Introduction ends:
How to use this book? I suggest you read a chapter at a time – they are long chapters. And then first ask: “What do these issues, these challenges MEAN for our organization and for me as a knowledge worker, a professional, an executive?” once you have thought this through, ask: “What ACTION should our organization and I, the individual knowledge worker and/or executive, take to make the challenges of this chapter into OPPORTUNITIES for our organization and me?”
AND THEN GO TO WORK!
Peter F. Drucker"One thought on “The Tragedy of the Commons: An Emerging Risk to the Entrepreneurial Society, by Johan Roos”
Claremont, California
New Year’s Day 1999
By reading a tweet of the Global Drucker Forum (@GDruckerForum) that started with “’#Capitalism has a very dark side that’s upsetting the world order’ warns…” Johan Roos, it attracted my full attention. It did as I have been repeatedly trying to get a generative dialogue (not a debate) going on the difference between inclusive capitalism and great capitalism.
As far as we understand inclusive capitalism remains under the Cartesian mindset of the industrial civilization and its independent countries. Great capitalism let us leap under the systemic thinking mindset to the systemic civilization (more below) that needs to be created with interdependent countries.
We understand that inclusive capitalism leads to the said “very dark side” by operating in the saturated region of the industrial civilization experience curve. We explain next why great capitalism will help transform, transition, and develop the very bright side in the different experience curve of the systemic civilization where Peter Drucker’s entrepreneurial society readily fits to its high growth region.
Great capitalism is inspired and follows Jim Collins book “Good to Great,” from which we quote: “When used right, technology becomes an accelerator of momentum, not a creator of it” (162). Great companies refrained from adopting technology because it was trendy; each tool they chose to leverage was carefully selected. Disciplined thought and the clarity gained from a developed Hedgehog Concept, led good-to-great leaders to review what was truly relevant to their business, analyzing applications to deepen their understanding of its impact. In turn, pioneering strategies in the applications of technologies emerged.
We identified the problem with “very dark side” (good – for a few) capitalism is the ‘Groupthink” of the industrial civilization of independent countries, which generated what were called “wicked problems.” Those problems were identified at least in the early 1970s. From then on those problems, which we now identify as anti-systemic (not systemic which is in favor of systems – more below) problems have been escalating as the fourth information revolution (that Peter Drucker understood had a precedent in the third – printing press – information revolution) keeps emerging, but has not been allowed to help create the systemic civilization.
In other words, the “Emerging Risk to the Entrepreneurial Society” is in the industrial civilization saturated region under good capitalism by said ‘Groupthink,’ not in the systemic civilization under great capitalism. The main systems architecting difference between those civilizations is that of independent versus interdependent countries.
To address the two above mentioned ‘more below,’ we repeat a comment we wrote a month ago here in the GPDFBlog under the post “Brexit: Crisis and Opportunity – Nothing Lasts Unless Incessantly Renewed” by David Hurst
Can we say there is a “Waning Narrative of the G-20” 4-5 September 2016 meeting outcome?
• strengthening the G20 growth agenda
• pursuing innovative growth concepts and policies
• building an open world economy
• ensuring that economic growth benefits all countries and people
Some economists are now writing that Margaret Thatcher’s story about There Is No Alternative (TINA) to neoliberalism is wrong. It seems they want to keep over-expanding the industrial civilization.
I have reinterpreted W. Edwards Deming concept about (discrete) broken systems as being not systems but (a continuum) anti-systems. From that a story emerges the following:
Restricting ourselves to what Deming suggested about anti-systems in his book “The New Economics: for industry, government, education,” we will learn that a system has a future. Then Margaret Thatcher story is wrong by being the source to soaring inequality under Cartesian incremental innovation transition approaches. TINA as the shared story of our times that has led to widespread anti-systems based on the Old Economics. A new shared story that enable systemic radical innovations transformation approaches might be TIAF — There Is A Future – in the Systemic Civilization (please Google it).
