What Peter Drucker Would Be Reading

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

1.   ‘Decisive’: Chip Heath on How to Make Better Choices: Authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath have a new book: Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work. The Heaths believe we generally do poorly in our decision making. In an interview with Knowledge@Wharton Chip Heath explains some of his insights. One idea: When you have a problem, ask people outside of your immediate circle for advice. “Very often we get locked into a fairly narrow set of people and ideas that we consult,” Heath notes. “We consult people in our company on our floor, as opposed to consulting people in the broader industry or even consulting people in other industries that face similar problems.”

2.   Washington Has Few Strings to Pull in Egyptian Crisis: To aid or not to aid? That is the question that now confronts Washington policymakers after the democratically elected Islamist government of Egypt was recently toppled in a military coup. Technically, coups lead to cutoffs of financial aid, but Washington is reluctant to make an enemy of the new regime. Geoff Dyer examines the issue in the Financial Times and decides that Washington is damned either way. He writes, “Omnipotent or impotent? Amid the tumultuous events of the last week in Egypt, the U.S. has been accused of both doing too much and far too little.” 

3.  How the Snowden Leaks and NSA Surveillance Are Bad For Business: Lots of foreign companies make use of American technology and business services. But, in the wake of revelations about the NSA’s PRISM program, will they trust us enough in the future to use our web services? Dave Thier, writing in Forbes, thinks our businesses will weather the storm, but it won’t be good for them—especially for the small ones. Thier writes, “In a market where countries like Iceland are actively courting privacy-concerned customers, the U.S. can have a tough time proving a competitive advantage.”

4.  Dx Comment of the Week: Last week, when we asked how a company founder can know when he or she ought to step aside, reader Nicole had this to say:

Clay Mathile of Iams is a great example of a CEO knowing when to replace himself for the betterment of the company. He knew when his board told him. They had to tell him more than once before he actually listened, but he now agrees it was the best decision for the company.