Peter Drucker and Freelance Writing

From the time that Peter Drucker, the creator of modern management thinking, emigrated from England to the United States in 1937, until shortly before his death at 95 in 2005, he was a prolific freelance writer. This work was in addition to being a professor and consultant, and was directly related to the more than 40 books he wrote that sold millions of copies worldwide during that period.

Freelance writing was integral to his professional philosophy and people-centered values. He knew that knowledge workers (a term he coined in the late 1950s) needed concise and understandable information to make their best contributions to society. They required a focused education that fit in with their daily lives. His journalistic contributions did just that.

In 1999, I interviewed Drucker’s longtime editor at HarperCollins, Cass Canfield, Jr., for a USA Today article. He remarked about Drucker: "He was a newspaper man, and he is used to writing for deadline. It's extraordinary how he can communicate in such a clear and methodical manner about so many subjects. He has a great feeling about people. He's tough-minded but charitable about human nature."

Source: Source: Christian Horz/Shutterstock

Drucker wrote for high-quality, selective publications, including a long-running Wall Street Journal column and a number of articles for Harvard Business Review. Many of the latter were later anthologized in the Harvard Business Review Press books Classic Drucker and Peter F. Drucker on the Profession of Management.

His early professional writing didn’t just come out of nowhere. While in his early twenties, he was a journalist in Germany for the daily newspaper Frankfurter General-Anzeiger, before moving to England for a brief banking career. One year after arriving in the United States, the Austrian-born Drucker did some fascinating foreign correspondent work for The Washington Post, during a return visit to Europe in the spring of 1938.

Foreign Correspondent

In Adventures of a Bystander, Drucker’s memoir originally published in 1978, he writes that he cold-called the Post’s foreign editor, Barnet Nover, walked into his office, and left two hours later with an advance for the first two pieces. In describing the paper in those days, Drucker writes that the Post, “… under its new owner, Eugene Meyer, was rapidly becoming the leading paper in Washington and the 'house organ' of the government bureaucracy.” Drucker also writes that he “… joined the Foreign Press Association and got a press card (which, incidentally, I never once was asked to show).”

I’m aware of at least five articles from 1938 under his byline (“By Peter F. Drucker, Special Correspondent of The Post”):

“Chamberlain’s Stock Sags in Great Britain” (Dateline: London; April 10, 1938)

“Under Germany’s Shadow: Populations Bordering on Nazi Empire in Danger” (Dateline: Zurich, April 16, 1938)

“Rome Letter: Anglo-Italian Agreement Stirs Pride of People But Not Enough to Counteract Uneasiness Over Business Outlook” (Dateline: Rome; May 5, 1938)

“Paris Letter: France Found Disillusioned By Failure of Daladier Government to Restore Confidence Overnight” (Dateline: Paris; May 13, 1938)

“Europe in Shadow: Correspondent Finds Tension And Fears Prevalent Everywhere With Old Bases of Politics Destroyed” (No dateline; May 18, 1938)

Management, Economics, Technology

By my count, Drucker wrote at one time or another for 79 different publications—including Psychology Today—an astounding total. This is probably an undercount, especially of European publications pre-1937. One way to get a sense of the variety and scope of his freelance writing is to examine selected sources for some of his book collections:

Leadership Essential Reads

Political Leaders and Cults: Why Do They Drink the Kool Aid?

Self-Oriented Versus Other-Oriented Leadership

The Ecological Vision: Reflections on the American Condition: Esquire, Forbes, Harper’s, Harvard Business Review, Perspectives, Public Interest, The Review of Politics, Sewanee Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Wall Street Journal (originally published in 1993)

The Frontiers of Management: Where Tomorrow’s Decisions Are Being Shaped Today: Chronicle of Higher Education, Esquire, Forbes, Foreign Affairs, Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal (originally published in 1986)

Managing in a Time of Great Change: Atlantic Monthly, Foreign Affairs, Industry Week, Wall Street Journal (originally published in 1995)

Managing in the Next Society: Atlantic Monthly, Business 2.0, The Economist, Forbes ASAP, Foreign Affairs, Inc. Magazine, Leader to Leader, New Perspectives (originally published in 2002)

Technology, Management and Society: Essays by Peter F. Drucker: Harvard Business Review, The Journal of Business of the University of Chicago, Management Today, The McKinsey Quarterly, Technology and Culture (originally published in 1970)

Toward the Next Economics and Other Essays: Conference Board Record, Foreign Affairs, Harper’s, Harvard Business Review, Public Administration Review, Science, Wharton Magazine (originally published in 1981)

Productivity and Quality

As Drucker pointed out in the acknowledgments of some of these books, many of his articles were written to ultimately become published in his book collections. For instance, in Managing in the Next Society, he writes: “I always prepublish chapters of an essay volume such as this either as magazine articles or magazine interviews. This gives me professional editing by the editors of the magazines in which the pieces appear and by professional interviewers. It is “feedback” of a quality and insight I could not possibly attain any other way…”

Drucker’s freelance articles show how productive he was over such a long period of time, while still maintaining high quality. Writing for such a varied set of publications helped him to reach different demographics of readers. There was probably little crossover in the readers of Harvard Business Review and, for example, the Saturday Evening Post.

In 2020, Harvard Business Review Press repackaged eight books of collections of his freelance writing as The Drucker Library, both individually and as a boxed set. These books had originally been published elsewhere but had gone out of print. The repackaging features shorter, snappier titles for each book; updated and eye-catching cover designs, and a brief, mostly uniform introduction providing some context about the essays in each.

For instance, The Frontiers of Management is now Peter F. Drucker on Globalization; Managing in a Time of Great Change is now Peter F. Drucker on the Network Economy; Technology, Management and Society: Essays by Peter F. Drucker is now Peter F. Drucker on Technology; and Toward the Next Economics and other Essays is now Peter F. Drucker on Nonprofits and the Public Sector.

Articles not available through the book collections are in many cases available online, providing an outlet that wasn’t available when many of the pieces were originally published. Drucker’s freelance writing is a valuable part of his legacy; a testament to his creativity, scholarship, humanity, and deep ability and desire to communicate with as many people as possible.