CHAPTER 5
What I Learned from Peter Drucker
THE FIRST TIME I SPOKE TO PETER DRUCKER WAS BY TELEPHONE. It was the mid-1960s, about five years after we had taken Premier Industrial Corp. public. I knew very little about Peter at the time and was calling him not for management advice but rather as a reference for a candidate I wanted to hire as a consultant.
He answered the phone himself, with one of the most distinctive voices I had ever heard. Every word was spoken slowly and in a measured way, with a heavy European accent that I would later learn was Viennese.
“Peter Drucker here,” he said.
I quickly introduced myself and then asked what he thought of the investment adviser candidate who had named Drucker as a character reference. Apparently, ...
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