The Trap of Management Without Questions
Every Monday at 7:00 AM, four of us gather to read and discuss Peter Drucker’s Management. This week’s chapter: Chapter 40, “The Manager and the Management Sciences.”
Introduction
A major Korean conglomerate recently launched a company-wide program to identify High-Potential (HiPo) talent and build a structured Leadership Pipeline. Top HR specialists and a leading consulting firm were brought in. On the day the program was unveiled to group executives, a distinguished professor delivered the keynote. Midway through, one participant had a quiet, unsettling thought:
“If what this professor is saying is right — we shouldn’t be launching this program at all.”
Months of work. Considerable expense. And yet the most fundamental question — does this program actually fit our company? — had never been asked.
The term “management science” may feel dated, but its place has been taken by consulting firms and a parade of specialists in SCM, ESG, Industry 4.0, and AI. The question Drucker posed decades ago remains as sharp as ever: are we actually making good use of outside expertise?
His diagnosis is direct. Instead of asking “What is this business? What does it need?” experts asked “Where can I apply my tool?” Managers bear responsibility too — most demand answers they can use right now, when what outside experts can actually offer is something far more valuable: tested assumptions, the right questions, and a genuine understanding of the choices available.
Consulting That Starts With a Keyword Is Lost From the Start
In my years as a consultant, I watched the same pattern repeat. Most clients launched projects not from a genuine question about the business, but from external pressure: “Our competitors are doing this.” “This keyword is everywhere.” E-commerce. Big data. Industry 4.0. ESG. Now AI. The keyword changes. The pattern doesn’t.
We consultants were not innocent either. When a keyword trended, we productized it. Both sides were consuming the same fashions together. Drucker’s critique of management scientists — asking “where can I apply my technique?” rather than “what does this organization need?” — applies just as cleanly to consulting today.
When a project starts with a keyword instead of a question, it is directionless from day one.
The Lesson ESG Left Behind — and the Mistake AI Is Repeating
A few years ago, ESG dominated corporate agendas. But most energy went toward hitting regulatory scorecards, not asking how sustainability should fundamentally reshape the business. When regulatory pressure eased, the ESG boom faded with it.
The core question ESG raised — does this company exist in a sustainable way? — did not disappear. The gap between companies that genuinely wrestled with it and those that didn’t will become visible the next time this issue resurfaces.
AI transformation is now repeating the same pattern. Solutions bolted onto departments one by one, without a clear driving question, produce pieces that don’t fit together. Costs rise. Results don’t come. Like Frankenstein’s creature: every component is state-of-the-art, but the whole doesn’t work.
Defining the right question is the manager’s job to begin with. Bringing in experts without it, then blaming them when things go wrong, is an abdication of responsibility.
Why Studying Managers Are So Rare
One participant in our discussion put it plainly: “When you remind executives about accountability, they all say they have it. But there are different qualities of accountability. Some kinds make you study. Others don’t.”
Why do so many managers struggle to take that weight seriously? It doesn’t seem to be simply a matter of diligence or willpower.
“It is up to the manager to convert the management sciences from potential to performance.”
Managers must do their own studying — refining the questions they carry, testing their hypotheses against outside expertise. That is the fundamental posture a manager needs to hold.
Closing
Yet under the banner of pragmatism, time spent sharpening a question is treated as waste. The keyword changes; the problem repeats. Focused on ESG scores, we lost the question of sustainability. Focused on AI solutions, we forgot to ask what we were trying to achieve.
Understanding why you do what you do — and holding yourself accountable for that judgment — is where a manager’s most basic responsibility begins. It cannot be outsourced. And only managers who recognize it as their responsibility are capable of making real use of outside expertise.
From the Monday morning Drucker reading group — 7:00 AM every week.