Fundamentals of Project Management, Third Edition

Definitions of Management

One common definition of management is that a manager gets work done by other people. Only a bit of thought is needed to realize how useless this definition is. Dictators get work done by other people, but I wouldn’t call that management. Dr. Peter Drucker, who many credit with being the “father” of management, because he first made people realize that management was a profession, rather than a job, has written that a manager is supposed to make an unsolicited contribution to the organization (Drucker, 1973). That is, a manager looks around to see what needs to be done to advance the cause of the organization and does it without asking permission or having to be told to do it. This is often called pro-active, as opposed ...