Peter Drucker said no executive should make more than 20 times as much as a company worker.

He was speaking in 1982. He was spot on then and his point stands today.

I'd phrase things differently:

No executive is worth 20 times the pay of ordinary workers.

So why are companies willing to pay some executives many hundreds times the pay of ordinary workers?

It isn't because they deliver 'shareholder value', there's almost no link between company performance and executive pay.

John Mackey at the Harvard Business Review blog says:

If CEO compensation is primarily driven by competitive markets, then how come the ratio was only 24 to 1 back in 1965 and is about 300 to 1 today? Surely the market demand for good CEOs is no greater today than it was 45 years ago or 25 years ago. Are CEOs today really worth that much more than their comparable peers were worth just a few decades ago?

An interesting piece at Computerworld about the father of modern management and the first person to use the phrase "knowledge worker".

I'm not sure about describing Drucker as a life coach – it is a term I've learnt to mistrust.

Peter Drucker as Life Coach: Book Shares His Wisdom.

An article in CIO magazine about Peter Drucker – who first coined the term knowledge worker.  It isn't a soft piece. In The comeback Charlatan David James is critical writing;

He talks about knowledge as the organisation's vital "resource". It is not a resource (resources are inanimate; knowledge is an act of animate humans).

Likewise, his use of the economics-derived term "productivity" is doubtful. It is not how much knowledge is "produced" but how well it is applied.

In an interview with BRW, Drucker dismissed these concerns, saying that "eventually, we will have to work out the proper methodology for both defining and measuring knowledge, work and the knowledge worker".

The comeback Charlatan

Employers who regard knowledge workers as a cost, not an asset are out of touch.

Jay Cross pulled together some interesting quotes from management guru Peter Drucker about the factors needed for knowledge worker productivity at the Internet Time Blog. They are all worth reading, but the last is, to me, the most important. He writes:

Knowledge worker productivity requires that the knowledge worker is both seen and treated as an “asset” rather than a “cost.” It requires that knowledge workers want to work for the organisation in preference to all other opportunities.

This sums things up nicely. Companies need to learn that knowledge workers are assets, but they also need to recognise they are assets that can leave at a moment's notice taking their skills and expertise elsewhere.

via Productivity advice from the sage — Internet Time Blog.

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."

Peter Drucker

Many regard Drucker as the father of modern management. Here we remember him as the man who came up with the term; "knowledge worker".

I love two things about this quote. First, its confidence. Second, it inspires me to get off my backside and create things.

Bob Sutton dug up this brilliant quote from Peter Drucker.

Like Sutton I think some meetings are essential, but both Sutton and Drucker are right: they are too often a substitute for real work.

Bob Sutton: Peter Drucker: "One Either Meets or One Works".