What Peter Drucker Would Be Reading

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

1. Get Out of Your Comfort Zone: A Guide for the Terrified: As we resolve to do things differently in 2014, we’ll need the courage to make that happen. How do we summon it up? Andy Molinsky of Brandeis International Business School offers three suggestions at the HBR Blog: 1. “Recognize when you’re tricking yourself.” 2. “Construct a plan that’s unique to your situation.” 3. “Find a mentor or coach.”

2. Inside TAO: Documents Reveal Top NSA Hacking Unit: When garage openers all over San Antonio stopped working one morning in 2010, it was a small hint of how far the reach of the Office of Tailored Access Operations at the National Security Agency can extend. A detailed report on the latest revelations about the NSA and its impact on our lives can be read in Spiegel Online International, which notes that the TAO “infiltrates computers around the world and even intercepts” deliveries of new computers and computer accessories being shipped to those it is targeting so that it can “load malware onto the electronics.”

3. France in Review: Perfect Track Record of Economic Ineptitude: It’s been a rough year for France’s economy. One especially vehement I-told-you-so comes from idiosyncratic and Austrian-economics-friendly blogger Mike “Mish” Shedlock, who offers a rundown of two dozen French missteps throughout the year. “It’s very difficult to be perfect at anything, even failure,” Shedlock writes. “France managed.”

4. Dx Comment of the Week: Last week, when we looked at the epidemic of returns from online shoppers and asked what people thought, reader Sat Ganesha Khalsa had this to say:

One never knows what to expect until you actually have it in your hands. Clothes are the worst. . . . Buying 10 options to actually buy three is an excellent strategy to make certain you get what you want.