Inspiration from Drucker Centennial Week

The Drucker Centennial Week celebration finished with Drucker Centennial Day yesterday. We had Jim Collins, Charles Handy, and many other great guest speakers coming to Claremont and share all kinds of insights with us, especially about "Why we need Drucker now, more than ever"!

I was really excited that we have the chance to meet Jim Collins and can hear from him about Drucker's philosophy. And he didn't disappoint me at all! One sentence that really touched me is this, "The great leaders are extremely ambitious, but not for themselves!"

People tend to think the basic stuffs are not as important and new thoughts or innovations. Although some new ideas are pretty excited, the sincerity, honesty, trust, etc, are still the most important characters for a successful leader. And people usually forget these things because they are simply too basic.

There must be reasons that great leaders/thinkers are always talking about the basic things. However, many people focus only in narrow field and ignore the importance of the big picture. Human beings have unlimited capability, but we like to limit ourselves all the time.

One advice that Jim Collins offered was to "build your own personal board of directors. People selected not for their accomplishment, but for their character. The people you will be embarrassed talking to if you are thinking if this is really a right thing to do."

Every of his suggestion is just so deeply touching my heart, and I almost agree with every of them sincerely.

When Jim Collins talked about the first meeting between him and Peter Drucker. When Drucker left his advice for Jim Collins, Peter was not worried about Jim's survival in academic, nor about Jim's career or financial success, but Peter asked Jim to think about how to be useful. And as Jim Collins recalled, that 10 seconds conversation changed his whole life.

This week truly reminded me how great Peter Drucker is. The week also convinced me once again that I am extremely lucky to be in this fantastic school. Thanks for Jim Collins, I again listened to a speech with tears in my eyes.

As a co-director of Marketing Club in Drucker School, I was proud that I really have some trustworthy partners to work with now. The result can be so easily seen as we presented the club booth. On that booth, we had the collaborative work of many people in marketing club. The booth was beautifully designed and decorated. We had Prof. Darroch's new book presented on the booth. The certificate of being one chapter of American Marketing Association was so shining. I am also grateful that members designed different materials that make our project successful. To present the business card the member designed in the booth, I felt really proud.

This semester, the Drucker Marketing Club is having many activities and events going on. We are having guest speakers coming in next two weeks, too. I am really glad we are having members keep joining our events!

The final part I'd like to share is about the conversation with Masatoshi Ito, the founder and honorary chairman of the Ito-Yokado Group. His friendship and working relationship with Peter Drucker spanned more than three decades. Ito San is an amazingly humble person and a great leader in Japan. I am so honored to be in the school named Peter F. Drucker and Masatoshi Ito School!

Ito San was really kind and took time to meet Drucker School students. Because this event was decided at the last minute, we were worried that we could not broadcast the information fast enough to draw people to this event. However, we soon found that the worry was so stupid. Ito San is such a great leader that his appearance drew attention by nature. We ended up with a room full of people, and crowd even outside of the room.

Ito San talked about his relationship with Peter Drucker and how he learned from Peter. In fact, Peter insisted to have Ito's name on the school because he believed Ito San is a practical side of himself! Seeing the true friendship with two great men, I was deeply touched and felt so proud to be associated with them.

Non-surprisingly, the values that Ito San deeply embeds in every aspect of his thought totally match what Peter and all other great thinkers believe. They all value social responsibility, honesty, and dignity. They all dislike the "money centric" and "profit-only" ideas. Just like Jim Collins said, "The great leaders are extremely ambitious, but not for themselves." Ito San is a great example and role model for us, which I truly appreciate!

In this photo, the person in the center who had the great smile on his face is one of our professors. He is teaching self-management in our school, a field that is very important for knowledge workers, but are not addressed by most "B-schools" at all.

I have been studying in Drucker School for more than 1 year. Of course, this school is not perfect, and it's small with limited resources.

However, where can you find a school that all the professors are really passionate about teaching and students' success? Where can you find a school that everyone is so friendly and so tightly working together, even as volunteers? In what kind of business speaking sessions, you can find your eyes wet all the time while listening to different great speakers talking about their dream and Peter's dream.

The Drucker School is great. I am extremely lucky to be here and to share all the great thoughts with many many great people.