Adapted from the upcoming 'The Wall Street Journal Guide to Management' by Alan Murray, published by Harper Business.

    What do managers do? One good answer to this question comes from the late Peter Drucker, whose name that stands out above all others in the century-long history of management studies.

    A native of Vienna, Austria, Mr. Drucker was an intellectual who worked as a journalist and studied economics. At some point in his studies he had an epiphany: economists, he realized, 'were interested in the behavior of commodities, while I was interested in the behavior of people.' That led him to, in effect, create the modern study of management.

    Mr. Drucker divided the job of the manager into five basic tasks. The manager, he wrote:

    1) Sets objectives. The manager sets goals for the group, and decides what work needs to be done to meet those goals.

    2) Organizes. The manager divides the work into manageable activities, and selects people to accomplish the tasks that need to be done.

    3) Motivates and communicates. The manager creates a team out of his people, through decisions on pay, placement, promotion, and through his communications with the team. Drucker also referred to this as the 'integrating' function of the manager.

    4) Measures. The manager establishes appropriate targets and yardsticks, and analyzes, appraises and interprets performance.

    5) Develops people. With the rise of the knowledge worker, this task has taken on added importance. In a knowledge economy, people are the company's most important asset, and it is up to the manager to develop that asset.

    While other management experts may use different words and focus on different aspects of these responsibilities, Mr. Drucker's basic description of the manager's job still holds.

    管理者要做什么？這個(gè)問題的一個(gè)好答案來(lái)自已故的彼得•德魯克(Peter Drucker，又譯杜拉克)，在管理學(xué)的百年歷史上，他的光芒蓋過了所有人。

    德魯克出生于奧地利維也納，是一名知識(shí)分子，曾作過記者，研究過經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)。后來(lái)他在研究中頓悟出：經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)家感興趣的是商品的運(yùn)行，而我則對(duì)人的行為感興趣。這實(shí)際上引導(dǎo)他創(chuàng)建了現(xiàn)代管理學(xué)。

    德魯克將管理者的工作分成了五項(xiàng)基本任務(wù)。他寫道，管理者應(yīng)該：

    1) 確定目標(biāo)。管理者為團(tuán)隊(duì)制定目標(biāo)，決定需要做哪些工作來(lái)實(shí)現(xiàn)目標(biāo)。

    2) 組織協(xié)調(diào)。管理者將工作分成可管理的各個(gè)活動(dòng)，并選擇人員來(lái)完成所需的任務(wù)。

    3) 激勵(lì)與溝通。管理者通過薪酬、安排和提升等決策手段，通過他與團(tuán)隊(duì)的溝通交流，從手下人中創(chuàng)建出一個(gè)團(tuán)隊(duì)。德魯克還將這點(diǎn)稱為是管理者的“整合”功能。

    4) 進(jìn)行衡量。管理者確定適當(dāng)?shù)哪繕?biāo)和標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，然后分析、評(píng)估和詮釋業(yè)績(jī)。

    5) 發(fā)展人員。隨著知識(shí)工作者的增加，這個(gè)任務(wù)變得越來(lái)越重要。在知識(shí)經(jīng)濟(jì)中，人才是公司最為重要的資產(chǎn)，而開發(fā)這一資產(chǎn)則是管理者的職責(zé)。

    盡管其他管理專家可能會(huì)使用不同的詞語(yǔ)，專注于這些職責(zé)的不同方面，但德魯克對(duì)管理者工作的基本描述依然行之有效。