Drucker.” I felt that I was lucky in not getting a severe reprimand for my insolence. He had written only: “To Bill Cohen with best regards, Peter F. I still re-read the book and it is before me now almost fifty years later. As I returned to my seat I thought, “my gosh did he actually write what I asked?” Peter did not say word, picked up his pen and began to write. However, being both immature and what was known as a smart aleck, I was a real jerk and that is what I did. Only a real jerk would respond with a joke like mine to an individual who was one of the most famous men in the world. Without even stopping to think I blurted out: “Just write ‘To Bill Cohen to whom I owe everything’.” This showed real nerve, however by then, as with all of his students, I considered myself his friend. When it was my turn he asked me if there was anything special that I wanted him to write. Some months later, in what I think it was the third or fourth class I took from him, I got in line with the others to get his autograph. He used different chapters of the same textbook in all the classes he taught. He told us that we would only be responsible for 10 chapters during the course and that he thought the notion anyone could master the entire book of 61 chapters in one semester was unrealistic. He simply wanted to get this out of the way since there was a real demand for his autograph. This was not a demonstration of his ego, however. His announcement struck me as egotistical and I was determined to demonstrate that I was unmoved by his fame or position so I remained seated. Many of my classmates had him in previous classes and already had the autograph in their books. This was about half the class and I think I was the only new Drucker student who remained in my seat. Twenty or thirty students accepted his offer and lined up to get the signature which had been offered. In the first of his classes I took, I got the wrong impression when he began the class with an offer to sign our textbook which was his book Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, the weighty 839-page tome published one or two years earlier. As a result, his lectures occasionally could and did go on several hours over schedule to 11 or 12 o’clock at night if he felt that his students would gain knowledge that he thought important for them to have. He truly cared for his students and their learning entrusted to him. He knew wives, including mine, by their first names, and could identify them after making their acquaintance just once. In class Peter appeared to be occasionally boastful but he was always accurate, approachable, friendly and open to questions from students who he inevitably answered without hesitation. What was Peter Drucker like in the classroom? So, when I refer to Peter Drucker, also known as “the man who invented management” as “Peter”, I am not being disrespectful. Fifty years ago, it was the custom at Claremont Graduate University for graduate students and professors to be on a first-name basis and it is the same today.
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