Management is about human beings.
The modern enterprise is a human and social organization. Management as a discipline and as a practice deals with human and social values. To be sure, the organization exists for an end beyond itself. In the case of business enterprise, the end is economic; in the case of the hospital, it is the care of the patient and his or her recovery; in the case of the university, it is teaching, learning, and research. To achieve these ends, the peculiar modern invention we call management organizes human beings for joint performance and creates social organization. But only when management succeeds in making the human resources of the organization productive is it able to attain the desired outside objectives and results.
Management is no more a science than is medicine: both are practices. A practice feeds from a large body of true sciences. Just as medicine feeds off biology, chemistry, physics, and a host of other natural sciences, so management feeds off economics, psychology, mathematics, political theory, history, and philosophy. But like medicine, management is also a discipline in its own right, with its own assumptions, its own aims, its own tools, and its own performance goals and measurements.
ACTION POINT: Are you by background an engineer, economist, psychologies, mathematician, political scientist, historian, or philosopher? List three ways your background influences your approach to management.
The Frontiers of Management
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker