Editor’s letter

Citation

Randall, R.M. (2010), "Editor’s letter", Strategy & Leadership, Vol. 38 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/sl.2010.26138caa.001

Editor’s letter

Article Type: Editor’s letter From: Strategy & Leadership, Volume 38, Issue 3

Two articles in this issue reflect on what it was like to work with world-famous management sage Peter Drucker, who died in 2005. In “Drucker’s strategic thinking process: three key techniques,” Dale E. Zand recalls some of the techniques Drucker used to start a strategic business discussion with clients during consulting assignments. Keep in mind that this was a number of decades ago when they both taught at New York University. For example, Zand remembers how Drucker, who sometimes employed the Socratic technique, raised the famous question, “Knowing what we know, would we enter this business now?” Zand shows how this and other Drucker techniques can be artfully used by today’s managers.

Painting a different portrait, Walter B. Schaffir remembers in “A cynic’s history of strategic management and consulting” when he was a corporate staff manager and had the pleasure of working with Drucker some fifty years ago. Drucker didn’t use the Socratic method at all says Schaffir, then a Director of Corporate Planning. Schaffir still admires the tough way Drucker handled the company’s chief executive. After a session in which they exchanged opposing opinions, Drucker told the CEO that he couldn’t work with him and left without accepting a fee. A few months later Drucker was invited back for lunch, took a check and gave his report. S&L readers will be delighted to hear from Schaffir (Schaffir@yahoo.com), now retired, who is well known throughout the strategic planning community as the organizer and director for many years of the Conference Board’s annual strategic management conferences.

I’d also like to highlight some other articles in this issue that deserve special reader attention:

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  Brian Leavy’s article “Masterclass: Design thinking – a new mental model of value innovation” is a triple treat. It is noteworthy because it thoughtfully explains the new concept of design thinking, because it is a very strong second article in Strategy & Leadership’s “Masterclass” series that offers a world-class education on important new ideas and because the article continues our recent exploration of value innovation, perhaps the most promising current field of strategic management.

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  “Analytics” – a combination of quantitative and technological capabilities used to out-think and out-execute rivals – is another emerging practice area S&L has ventured into in recent issues. In this issue, Jeanne Harris, Elizabeth Craig, and Henry Egan, researchers with the Accenture Institute for High Performance, offer top management a detailed plan for “How successful organizations strategically manage their analytic talent.” If you haven’t heard the news, because analytics is increasingly a key source of competitive advantage, attracting, engaging and retaining analytical talent and building an organizations’ analytical capability is now a matter of concern for top management.

Have a great read!

Robert M. RandallEditor