PT: Not everybody would be a success as an office manager. Are
there any other jobs that are especially suited to second careers?
Drucker: Indeed there are. The older professions are best suited to
become second careers. Middle age is really the best time to switch to
being the lawyer, the teacher, the priest, the doctor-I shocked you-and
the social worker.
PT: However would you train a man to be a doctor as a second
career?
Drucker: It is not very difficult to be a good doctor, a good
physician, I am not saying these men could do good heart transplants or
diagnose some obscure tropical disease, but they would know full well
that this diagnosis is not right and maybe the patient ought to go see a
specialist. But they could do the work the average general practitioner
faces.
PT: What has been the reaction of the medical schools to this
idea?
Drucker: I've talked to them. I said: "Take men of 45, engineers,
weather forecasters, career officers, how would you make doctors of them
in one year?" The medical schools said it couldn't be done. I said, "What
do you mean, it can't be done? With the amount of ignorance you have, I
could teach you in three weeks' " They answered, "It can't be done. They
have to learn the bones of the body." But they can look that up, you
know. Very rarely does a bone of the throat move into the knee.
And I talked to the archdioceses about putting these men in the
parishes as priests in six months. "Can't be done;' I was told. Most
training for these old professions consists of trying to simulate
experience. Hell, these people have experience.
PT: Is it being done anywhere?
Drucker: We are putting men into the classroom to teach at the
University in six months.
PT: How?
Drucker: How? By putting them into the classroom, period. Eight out
of ten will swim. And, once they swim I can work on polishing their
style. If they sink, I jump in with a life preserver. What I can't do is
to teach them how to swim.
PT: And if they sink, you pull them out so they can do something
else?
Drucker: No, I dry them off and throw them in again.
PT: In my mind, you are the ideal management consultant. But what
you have been describing to me partly is a personal employment agency.
How did you ever get into this wonderful thing? I wanted to be a
missionary when I was a little girl. You are one.
Drucker: Well, I have students, and friends who have kids. And it
has gotten around that if you get thrown out of the U.S. Navy on the
Eastern seaboard, there is a peculiar character around named Drucker of
whom most people seriously disapprove. I'm too frivolous for them.
PT: What's it like, being a management consultant?
Drucker: Any man who has been a consultant has dealt in the
unlicensed practice of psychiatry. The great weakness of an organization
is that you can't have a confidante. You are always either boss or
subordinate. And people are terribly lonely, terribly lonely. Here comes
an outsider, the licensed lunatic, and you just start spilling. What
clients tell you is incredible. I know much too much about them. Every
management consultant has the same experience.
PT: Doesn't this knowledge help you as a consultant?
Drucker: No.
PT: It doesn't help at all?
Drucker: Oh, sometimes. But more often, one has to suppress it. I
have never liked to be cruel, and as I get older, I hate cruelty more and
more. But one has to force oneself to do what is right. Sometimes that
means cutting off heads.
Then the question is, How do we do it in a compassionate way? If
the compassion enters into the initial decision, you get sentimental. In
the end, you do much more harm. The real cruelty is always that of
sentimental people. And so, one has to force oneself to eliminate all one
knows about that poor devil and only bring it in afterwards. You say, Now
that we have cut off his head, what do we do with him so that he doesn't
feel it? But first, his head must be cut off.
PT: What happens with the thousands and thousands of people who are
stuck, working out their years till retirement?
Drucker: I think company managers will have to learn to sit down
and say: "Look, Jack, do you want to stay here or do you really want to
do something? If you stay here, you are about as far as you will ever
get. Oh, maybe two more raises."
Most so-called promotions are not promotions, but raises, you know.
It just changes the title. And the boss should say: "You are going to
remain a quality control manager. Do you want to do that for 20 more
years? We are perfectly happy to have you stay around here. On the other
hand, you have all the mortgages paid off. What have you always wanted to
do? If you want to become a priest, well, we'll help you." Does this make
any sense to you?
PT: It makes all the sense in the world.
PHOTO: Peter Drucker
PHOTO: An old photo of a dentist (INDEX/BLACK BOX)
PHOTO: Two women working (INDEX/BLACK BOX)
PHOTO: A photo of a mailman (INDEX/BLACK BOX)
Tags:
birthdays,
career,
career choices,
claremont california,
claremont graduate school,
disapproval,
dissatisfaction,
economic man,
economist,
education,
educational system,
harpercollins,
job opportunities,
management consultant,
news correspondent,
nineties,
Peter Crucker,
peter drucker,
professorship,
proper education,
waiting lists,
work
