引言
To Know the Real Drucker: Eight Articles Will Help You, edited by Minglo Shao
Mr. Minglo Shao is a Chinese entrepreneur with a strong innovative spirit. China reformed its economy and opened to the world in the 1980s. Since then, Mr. Shao has founded successful companies in real estate, logistics services, management consulting and training and other fields. As founder of the Peter Drucker Academy, he has administrated, studied, and taught Peter Drucker’s thoughts for over 20 years. Mr. Shao believes that “all of Drucker’s works are one book,” reflecting his interpretation of Drucker’s holistic philosophy, which encompasses society, community, government, and management, integrating the four themes into a whole.
Mr. Shao was one of twelve participants involved in creating the manuscript of Peter Drucker’s Managing in the Next Society (2002). In recent years, Mr. Shao has devoted himself to researching Drucker’s management philosophy, attempting to “interpret Drucker’s thought in Drucker’s language,” publishing the compilation Drucker on Totalitarianism and Salvation by Society (2021). In To Know the Real Drucker: Eight Articles Will Help You, he borrowed the mode of discussion and writing Drucker employed in Managing in the Next Society.
Beginning in August 2022, Mr. Shao organized seminars themed on the eight articles in this book, and I had the honor of participating in discussions of relevant chapters. To Know the Real Drucker: Eight Articles Will Help You is the second book Mr. Shao has edited. The manuscript ultimately focused on “management as a social function and liberal art,” attempting to open the way to understanding Drucker’s thought via the spiritual dimension and new worldview philosophy dimension.
The book has four parts:
Part one deals with faith. “The Unfashionable Kierkegaard” introduces readers to Drucker’s spiritual world and serves as an entry point into his system of thought. This approach is challenging, posing difficulties for those unfamiliar with Western religious thought have not yet developed religious beliefs. But once one comprehends the idea that “man exists both in the social dimension and in the spiritual dimension,” as Drucker proposes, it opens the door to his philosophical system.
The second part deals with worldview. Drucker argues for a holistic new worldview in the philosophical area in two articles: the first is based on changes in social phenomena in the United States in the early postwar period, proposing a corresponding “the new world-view of a configuration” (Landmarks of Tomorrow, 1957). The second looks at worldwide social phenomena at the end of the Cold War, advocating for “From Analysis to Perception: The New World View.” (The New Realities, 1989).
The third part is the application of religious faith and worldview. Kierkegaard believed that “human existence is possible as existence not in despair, as existence not in tragedy; it is possible as existence in faith.” When people have faith, they are both individuals in the spiritual dimension and citizens in the social dimension. Only when individuals (including entrepreneurs) face society’s imperfections in faith can they confront difficulties and endure despair; only then can they persist in their mission. Drucker regarded the two articles on worldview as essential methods for perceiving and analyzing different social ecologies, including industrial society, knowledge society, entrepreneurial society, and nonprofit social organizations (the social sector). Regardless of the stage or form of social development, Drucker’s social-ecological vision is consistent; that is, to build a tolerant, functioning society in the face of social imperfections.
Part four gives full play to management’s function in establishing an effective operational social ecology organization. In 2023, I proofread the archives of Mr. Shao’s conversations with Peter Drucker. Mr. Shao recalled that Drucker once told him that “The rapid development of competent managers and entrepreneurs capable of competing with the world’s best, is surely China’s greatest need, and the key to the country’s social and economic success.” Peter Drucker was long concerned with China and kept in touch with Chinese entrepreneurs, students studying abroad, and scholars such as Mr. Shao.
Dr. Jack Liu, Professor,
College of Humanities of Social Science,
California State University, Fullerton Los Angeles, California