Цитаты из книги Management Gurus (with audio CD, Intermediate Level)

While he was in London, Peter Drucker thought very hard about the events in Germany. Why had the Nazis come to power? he asked himself. He decided that it was the result of changes in the societies and the economies of European countries. The modern world had brought big changes to the way that people lived. In Europe and America people had left the farms and the countryside and moved to the cities to find work in factories and offices. The old ideas of society didn't mean anything to these people any more. The problem was that there were no good new ideas to replace them. He felt that ordinary people had lost hope in the future. In Germany, the solution to this problem was Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. But Drucker was sure that this problem could be solved in other ways.

He put his ideas into a book called The End of Economic Man. It was published in 1939, just before the start of the Second World War. It was an immediate success among certain kinds of people. The British politician Winston Churchill (who had not yet become a war leader) read the book and said that it was excellent. He said that all top soldiers in the British army should receive a copy to help them to understand the international situation. Drucker later learnt that they received his book in a package that also contained the famous children's story Alice In Wonderland.

General Motors had been started by the US businessman, Billy Durant. Durant collected companies like some people collect stamps. He owned companies that made everything from cars to fridges. He thought that if he owned enough companies, one or two of them were certain to be successful. Unfortunately he was wrong. Because although he was good at buying companies, he was useless at managing them. In fact, Durant was such a difficult man that he lost all his best employees, including some of the most famous names in the car business. Walter Chrysler worked for Durant for a time, but he soon left and started the successful Chrysler Corporation. Another employee was sacked because he smoked a cigarette in Durant's office. His name was Louis Chevrolet.