Michael,

I couldn't agree with Drucker's comment more: We have no right to ask people to take on jobs that will defeat them, no right to break good people. We don’t have enough good young people to practice human sacrifice.” The selection of the right person for the right job was the manager’s responsibility.

If people understood work levels and human capability to problem solve are the different levels, we would have a way of judging when one's problem solving capability had matured to a new level, and therefore, they would be capable of taking on a higher level role.

Absent of this knowledge, we promote and cross our fingers. Then we punish people who were promoted before their time by firing them or demoting them and then blackballing them from every moving higher.

The very same person who failed at a role two years ago, may be capable today if the problem solving capability has matured to the level of the role.

Work levels is the key. It is all spelled out in Elliott Jaques' Requisite Organization.

My blog is based on Requisite thinking and principles which includes the over promoting of an employee to be a managerial failure. But Jaques would say it is the failure of the manager-once-removed as they should be accountable for talent assessment and promotion.

Regards,

Michelle Malay Carter

Peter Drucker has tried to elucidate management roles and functions in society. Drucker is the father of Modern Management and the quintessential "action plan". Managers get effective results. Drucker dissuaded the notion that management is the sole domain of Business alone, rather he says the role of management can be found in all organizational activities from Governments to Non-Profits and that all require adequate management techniques to deliver results and he is right. The role of a manager is unlimited and without bounds. However, in today's fast moving environment, Drucker speaks of the highly specialized "knowledge worker" who are the Subject Matter Experts so the days of the manager who really understood the ins and outs of every part of the business activity is gone. Now, it is the manager who is going to be told by the employee what he knows and how best they can perform in their task. The hierarical system of yesterday is gone replaced by a society where your boss may be in one place and time and you are literally not even someone they have met in person.
Drucker's most intriguing concepts to me are:
1. Planning for uncertainty wherein he notes "what has already happened that will create the future as successful innovations literally exploit changes which have already occurred."
2. His work on effective decision making noting opinions always come first, then look for the facts to support it, not the other way around.
3. Everyone is functioning as an Executive today including the receptionist and if they are not then you have a problem.
4. Demography and statistical analysis offer insight into inflection points.
What insights will be missed now that he is gone. We must all work to pick up where he left off and become the Managers of Today, Leaders for Tomorrow.