. Plus, to see my “Book-of-the-Year” pick and my Top-10 book list from 2014,
and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.
Pick 1: The Weekly or
The Daily Drucker
One cookie or two? “When the only two answers are yes or no, you’re not satisfying customer needs.”When our son, Jason, was about four, I taught him an important marketing principle I learned from Bob Hisrich, co-author of our book,
Marketing Your Ministry: Ten Critical Principles.
Late one afternoon, Jason asked his mom for a cookie. “No,” Joanne said. “It’s too close to dinner time.”
I took Jason aside and gave him my fatherly advice on effective marketing. “Here’s how to get your cookie, Jason,” I began. “Tomorrow, go into the kitchen and ask Mom this simple question: “Can I have one cookie or two?”
My street-smart kid learned fast. The next day, he joined his mom in the kitchen and asked nonchalantly, “Mom? Can I have one cookie or two cookies?”
The answer was immediate: “Just one!”Jason enjoyed his chocolate chip cookie that afternoon because he gave his mom the opportunity to say no and still say yes. He gave her choices. It’s a simple marketing rule of thumb, but it’s easy to overlook in the Program Bucket:
"Give people the choice to say no to a few options—yet still say yes." (For more ideas on this, visit the
Program Bucket webpage.)
So…Do You Need a Daily Dose of Drucker—or a Weekly Coaching Session With Peter Drucker, the Father of Modern Management? (Or both?)My first book recommendation in 2015 is a two-fer (1 cookie or 2?):Option #1: A Year With Peter Drucker: 52 Weeks of Coaching for Leadership Effectiveness, by Joseph A. Maciariello
Option #2: The Daily Drucker: 366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done, by Peter F. Drucker, with Joseph A. Maciariello
A Year With Peter Drucker is hot-off-the-press (December 2014) and is the first-ever book I have recommended without a thorough read. But it’s a no-brainer pick--and I'm going to savor it, weekly, all year. The contents:
• 52 short chapters (each week is about five pages)
•
Big Idea: short introduction
•
Read: insights from Drucker’s writings
•
Reflect: color commentary revised and updated by Maciariello
•
Practicum-Prompts: in-the-ribs questions and insights from Maciariello
The author,
Joseph A. Maciariello, a friend and colleague at the Drucker School of Management, salutes Bob Buford, Jim Mellado, and Chuck Fromm, among others--for their contributions to the book. Week 1 highlights Drucker's 2002 consultation with World Vision International on the subject of "What Do Effective Leaders Do to Create High-Performing Organizations?"
If you need a daily dose of Drucker, then you may prefer Option #2 (or both!). The Daily Drucker, a page-a-day of Drucker (January 1 to December 31) is on the desks of many, many leaders and managers.
Topics for
The Daily Drucker are timely and memorable, like the entry for January 5 on abandonment. The subtitle warns, “There is nothing as difficult and as expensive, but also nothing as futile, as trying to keep a corpse from stinking.”
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) Joseph Maciariello, the author of this 52-week coaching gem, asks in his “Practicum-Prompts” for Week 1, “Are you developing leaders in your organization, or are you developing bureaucratic, rule-following functionaries?” How would you answer that?
2) What is your personal professional development plan for 2015? What is the coaching plan for your boss (or board chair) and your direct reports in 2015?
Lifelong Learning Is Intentional!
In my cycle through the 20 buckets, here’s the core competency from the Drucker Bucket, Chapter 4, in Mastering the Management Buckets:
“We are privileged to be leaders and managers and we steward that privilege by being lifelong learners and practitioners in the art of management. We don’t just give lip service to management—we are disciplined students of great leadership and management thinkers like Peter Drucker, Ken Blanchard and others.”
For more resources—and a list of the 39 books by Peter Drucker—visit the Drucker Bucket webpage.
NOTICE! Effective Oct. 1, 2025, all 657 eNews issues, previously archived on Typepad.com are slowly (!) being moved to this webpage.
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