The Financial Crisis: What Drucker Would Have Said
Peter Drucker would have had plenty to say about the recent turmoil on Wall Street, beginning simply with: “I told you so”
Peter Drucker didn’t have a whole lot of nice things to say about those on Wall Street, at one point likening them to “Balkan peasants stealing each other’s sheep.”
Given the magnitude of the latest crisis to grip Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, American International Group, Lehman Brothers, and their friends, one can only imagine what kind of acid analogy he might have used today.
Or perhaps he would have simply said, “I told you so.” After all, so much of the trouble that has befallen these giants of the investment banking, mortgage, and insurance sectors—and that threatens to “undermine the financial security of all,” as President George W. Bush put it—comes from a foolish disregard for the kinds of fundamental lessons that Drucker taught about risk, reach, and responsibility.
Some prefer to complicate things. Indeed, there is a temptation, in certain quarters, to fuzzy up what has happened here—to mask the basic management failures that are at the root of this disaster by pointing to the intricacies of credit-default swaps, “naked shorts,” and other arcana.
