Archivist’s Pick: On Rediscovering Our Colleagues’ Warmth and Humanity

Here’s this month’s piece from the Drucker Institute’s archivist, Bridget Lawlor. By drawing lessons from the vast treasure trove of papers and other objects that are collected in Peter Drucker’s archives, Bridget is giving new life to decades-old material.

As we continue to celebrate the holidays, we are happy to share this 1954 letter by an unknown author, thanking Peter Drucker for throwing a “wonderful Christmas party.” At this point in his life, Drucker was a professor at New York University, continuing to explore his ideas about management and the emerging realities of the world of knowledge workers.

The author of the letter says that the gathering provided the opportunity “to have fun together, the occasion for conviviality, but also the opportunity to rediscover after the strains of a year of hard work that each of us is a very real, warm, human person, not a mere fellow worker.”

We hope that you too are finding opportunities this season to rediscover and connect with the real, warm and human qualities of your fellow workers, friends and family.