Daniel Vasella was the former Chairman & CEO of Novartis AG, one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical firms. In 2004, he was voted as the most influential European business leader of the last twenty-five years in a Financial Times poll.
In a Mckinsey interview in 2009; in response to a question on management learning this is what he had to say, ” You asked about new management techniques, and I would say I have rather the opposite reaction. I go back and I read more in Peter Drucker’s books than on the newest kind of monolithic theme, because what we have watched and observed—and I know you know this in and out—we regularly have one theme which is blown up to a book, a new paradigm. But, frankly, it is just one element which has been specifically well investigated and then, you know, exposed and sold, but it always has been present. So if you go back to the roots, I think you see that most has been said and written”
I love Peter Drucker. Vasella sums up very well why I focus on Drucker’s thinking as the foundation for all my work. Drucker is timeless.