The Business of the Kingdom

http://www.ctlibrary.com/ct/1999/november15/9td042.html

Excerpts (you really need to read the whole thing - especially the last half):

Management is about people:

All managers do the same things, whatever the purpose of their organization. All of them have to bring people each possessing different knowledge together for joint performance. All of them have to make human strengths productive in performance and human weaknesses irrelevant. All of them have to think through what results are wanted in the organization and have then to define objectives.

Management by objectives is a management style identified with Drucker. Sometimes, unfortunately, the phrase has come to mean something quite different than Drucker intended. For some, management by objectives means setting targets and insisting that your staff meet them. It can stand for a relentless bottom-line mentality.

That is almost the opposite of Drucker's idea. Drucker calls for the worker, together with his boss, to develop meaningful objectives based on a thorough understanding of the work. Meaningful objectives begin with the mission of the organization and require much thought and understanding of the unique contribution a worker can make to that mission.

Management by objectives means giving workers autonomy helping them to set goals and freeing them to find their own way to reach those goals. This is quite different from supervision, in which a manager sets goals, tells the worker how to achieve them, and then keeps a close eye on the worker to see that he follows directions. Management by objectives expects a lot of creativity from workers and offers them considerable dignity.

A manager, whether in a ball-bearing manufacturer or in a large church, should spend hours placing people in the job to match their strengths, helping them to define their objectives, finding the resources they need to work effectively. Management is largely about people, not so much about their feelings as their effectiveness. Drucker's unstated assumption is that the best thing you can offer a person is the chance to contribute to a worthwhile cause.

Organizations exist to meet needs:

Drucker's understanding of business is also humane. He has never accepted profit as a goal for any enterprise. Rather, profit is a necessity for without an adequate margin of profit, business cannot survive, or if it survives, cannot grow and innovate. Profit is always a means to an end, never an end.

Nor does business, in Drucker's mind, exist to make and sell things. Business exists to meet human needs. Drucker's starting place for management is very simple but also very stimulating: you have to define what needs you will meet, and how.

One of Drucker's examples is the emergency room of a hospital. "It took us a long time to come up with the very simple and (most people thought) too obvious statement that the emergency room was there to give assurance to the afflicted . In a good emergency room, the function is to tell eight out of ten people there is nothing wrong that a good night's sleep won't take care of. Translating that mission statement into action meant that everybody who comes in is now seen by a qualified person in less than a minute. That is the mission; that is the goal. The rest is implementation. Some people are immediately rushed to intensive care, others get a lot of tests, and yet others are told: 'Go back home, go to sleep, take an aspirin, and don't worry. If these things persist, see a physician tomorrow.' But the first objective is to see everybody, almost immediately because that is the only way to give assurance."