Drucker: Even in General Electric there are laces where u can be on
your own, plenty of them. But let's go back to examples once again. I
know two young men, each of whom decided he would like to be completely
on his own. One is building a very nice business as a computer consultant
on the West Coast. The other one is in the East, building his own design
engineering firm. These young men are loners, they are extremes. I am one
myself. But take a more typical case. Yesterday, I had a young scientist
here. He had been with a medium-sized company for eight years, and was
their number two man in research. He wanted a change, but refused to go
into a big company. He knew he'd get better pay there, but he said that
unless he was in on a whole project, from the formulation of the proposal
to NASA all the way to the prototype delivery, he wasn't interested. This
morning, I think I found him the job he wants.
PT: What kind of a job?
Drucker: A job as head of the field of instrumentation design at
one of the country's largest hospitals. He knows nothing about
biochemistry, but he can learn. He will work with the surgeons there and
will head a small group of half a dozen engineers and biochemists. Now
the hospital is a hell of a big organization, but he won't even see the
big organization.
PT: You keep running into complaints about technology. Clark Kerr
has said that we can't really make our peace with technology. How can the
individual survive and function in this technology?
Drucker: Technology should be made to serve the individual. It can,
too.
PT: How? Isn't there war between the individual and
technology?
Drucker: There is no war; there is fear. It doesn't ever pay to be
permissive and pleasant about mechanical gadgets. Be nasty. Throw it out
if it doesn't perform.
PT: I wonder if people were afraid of the light switch once.
Drucker: That's right. I don't know whether you know that the first
advanced management-training course was one that the German Post Office
called in 1888. Its topic was the use of the telephone. Top management
was scared of the telephone. At the moment you realize that you can
always pull the plug, the fear is ended. Once you know what-you want to
do, either it can do it for you or it can't. If it can't, to hell with
it. The computer is a tool. If the tool can't do something for you, leave
it in the tool box.
PT: And careers are a tool, too.
Drucker: Precisely. The smart way to look at a career is, What does
it do for me? What do I want to accomplish?
PT: Are there any special things to look for in a company?
Drucker: Yes. You want old age at top management. You know, one
question the young career seeker never asks the company recruiter is,
"How old are the department heads?"
PT: You want old ones so you can come up, right?
Drucker: Oh, my, yes. You don't want the First National City Bank
in the city, for instance.
PT. They're all young?
Drucker: Oh, yes; the executive vice president is 36. Too many
companies actually are lopsided. You want a company with some old and
some young at the head.
PT: People are younger longer now. How has this changed the job
picture?
Drucker. The real career crisis is the extension of the
working-life span. In the time of our grandparents, man's working life
was over at 45. By then, few people were physically or mentally capable
of working. It was a rural civilization and the pre-industrial farmer was
either worn out or had been killed by an accident by age 45. The Chinese
or Irish who built our railroads had a five year working life. Within
five years they were gone-by liquor, or syphilis, or accident, or hard
work. Now, suddenly you have people reaching the age of 65 in the prime
of physical and mental health.
This is due partly to the movement of people from the farm to the
city-accidents occur on the farm with about ten times the frequency of
that in the most dangerous industrial employment-and partly to scientific
management taking the toil out of labor. We have pushed up education to
compensate for this.
PT: What possible solution is there other than a continual
increasing of life long education programs?
Drucker: I am absolutely convinced that one of the greatest needs
is the systematic creation of second careers. At 45, after having been a
market research man, or a professor of English or psychology, or an
officer in the armed services for 20 years, a man is spent. At least he
thinks so. But he is mentally, biologically, and physically sound. His
kids are grown up and the mortgage is paid off and he has plenty to
contribute to society.
PT: I should think they'd be scared to death.
Drucker: They are, scared out of their wits. Most of them think
they need a graduate degree or some kind of guidance. All they need is
for someone to say: "Look, Jack, there's nothing wrong with you." They
can apply to one of the big downtown law firms for a job as office
manager. These have 99 people who know nothing but law, and they need
someone to organize them. There are jobs as business managers of law
firms or accounting firms or small colleges. All kinds of good
jobs.
PT: It would be like starting life all over again.
Drucker: Six months after these men have taken on their new jobs,
they are 20 years younger. They have recovered enthusiasm, they are
growing, they have ideas. Their wives are enchanted. They are exciting
again.
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