What Peter Drucker Would Be Reading

Recent selections from around the web that, we think, would have caught Peter Drucker’s eye:

1.  The First Step to Being Powerful: If you want to be powerful, stop being a jerk to yourself. “Most of us talk to ourselves in ways we’d never talk to anyone else,” observes Nilofer Merchant at the HBR Blog. Merchant argues that we get powerful if we think of ourselves as having a strong “I” rather than a weak “I.” She writes, “You cannot change anything unless you first see your own self as powerful enough to act. The way we talk of ourselves and to ourselves grants power—narrative power—to what happens next.”

2.  The Promise and Perils of Equity Crowdfunding: You’ve probably experienced being hit up for a donation by someone on Kickstarter. That’s crowdfunding. But what if, in return for your donation, you want a piece of the resulting business?  That’s equity crowdfunding, and it’s a promising but tricky new potential addition to the toolbox of the entrepreneur. Knowledge@Wharton offers an interesting and helpful overview of the phenomenon and notes that it “has sparked debate about whether the change will spur economic growth or become another vehicle for fraud.”

3.  Few Bright Spots in Sad Survey of Federal Employees: Well, they could be a lot unhappier, but federal employees are at the very least less happy than they used to be. “Just 52% of federal workers said they have a high degree of respect for senior leaders, down from previous years,” reports Jena McGregor in the Washington Post.  “And just 41% said leaders generate high levels of motivation and commitment at work.”

4.  Dx Comment of the Week: Last week, when we asked readers to what degree courage—versus clear-eyed analysis and other factors—plays a role in their decision making, reader Daniel Pacheco had the following to say:

I first do my analysis homework and come to a conclusion. Then I put the answer aside and spend time with my feelings, intuition, pray about it and leave it to my subconscious mind to come to a conclusion. If analysis and intuition both give the same answer it is an easy decision. The problem is when one says yes and the other says no. Then courage comes into play.