Management as a Liberal Art Research Institute

The Anti-CEO Playbook: How Chobani’s Founder Asks Leaders to Embody the Principles of Drucker’s Management as a Liberal Art

Robert Kirkland, Ph.D.

PUBLISHED:

August 23, 2023

In the fast-paced landscape of the modern business world, traditional leadership models are being challenged like never before. Peter Drucker’s Management as a Liberal Art has long since asked businesses to do better. To take responsibility, acknowledge their place and power in society, and prioritize their people.

 

Enter The Anti-CEO Playbook. Chobani founder Hamdi Ulukaya’s groundbreaking TED talk presents a refreshing and thought-provoking approach to leadership. One that goes against the grain. But not against Drucker’s Management as a Liberal Art principles.

 

Ulukaya encourages us to toss out the business playbook. And to, instead, adopt a new one.

 

These concepts will challenge your assumptions and inspire you to think outside the box. Get ready to rewrite the rules and redefine what it means to be a great leader in the modern world.


From Profits to People:  Why it's Time for a New Playbook


In a world where profit margins often dictate business decisions, Hamdi Ulukaya donned his metaphorical cape and became an anti-hero of today’s business world.

 

Anti-hero: “a person who takes a different path to do things right.”

 

In 2005, Ulukaya purchased a failing yogurt plant. One that none of its previous big business owners could save.

 

Today, you may recognize the name – Chobani. America’s No. 1 yogurt brand.

 

It wasn't just the product that set Chobani apart. It was Ulukaya‘s commitment to his community, his employees, and to making a difference.

 

By giving shares to employees Ulukaya fosters a sense of ownership and community. Chobani’s engagement with refugees and local communities underscores its commitment to social responsibility. And Ulukaya’s success demonstrates how the principles he and Drucker advocate for can create not only thriving businesses but also flourishing societies.

 

The Pitfalls of the Old Playbook

Chobani’s success highlights how important effective leadership is. And it shows us the flaws in the old playbook. The one businesses and leaders have been living by for the past 40 years.

 

It’s time for a change.

 

The age-old playbook hinges on the practice of putting profits above all else. It has CEOs reporting to shareholders first. Putting their interests above those of the consumer and the communities where they do business.

 

The current playbook doesn’t teach you how to be a noble leader. It forces you to be beholden to profits. This approach has led to a disconnect between businesses and the societies they operate within.

 

If the current playbook is broken, the Anti-CEO Playbook is the solution.


The Anti-CEO Playbook


In his TED talk Ulukaya puts it simply: “When you’re right with your people, community, and product you will be more profitable and innovative. You will have more passionate people working for you. And a more passionate community to support you.”

 

That is what the Anti-CEO playbook is all about.

 

Prioritize People Over Profits

Ulukaya tells us there is a difference between profit and true wealth. For any business to rise above a profit-first model, it must prioritize its people. Leaders must take care of their employees first.

 

Prioritizing “dignity of work, strength of character, and the human spirit” is what sets exceptional leaders and exceptional organizations apart.

 

Community

The new way of business focuses on community. Instead of asking the surrounding communities for incentives or tax breaks for your business, seek out communities that you can be a part of.

 

Ask – “How can I help you?”

 

Ulukaya believes that businesses are in the best position to make a difference. To make real change. And that they have the responsibility to do so within their communities.

 

Accountability & Ethical Leadership

It’s time for CEOs to make a change. To take a different approach to accountability. Instead of being beholden to shareholders, Ulukaya encourages us to think about the consumer.

 

Consumers have the power of choice. To choose your product over another. When you recognize their place in the success or failure of your business, you start to create change.

 

When you follow the Anti-CEO playbook you’re not beholden to corporate boards. But are, instead, giving back to your consumers and your community.


Exceptional Management Principles


Ulukaya's approach to business aligns seamlessly with Drucker's ethos. Emphasizing a shift from profit-driven models to ethical and community-oriented management practices.

 

Management as a Liberal Art urges organizations to recognize their role in shaping society. And fostering a sense of responsibility toward it. The Anti-CEO playbook asks you to do the same.


In his book Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, Drucker first introduced the concept of Management as a Liberal Art. Arguing that effective management requires a deep understanding of culture, society, and human behavior. And that in order to be an effective leader you must not seek only to maximize profits, but also to contribute to the well-being of society.

Ulukaya's view resonates with Drucker's. Asking you to consider the broader impact of decisions and the power of choice. Both believe that a well-managed organization respects the individual dignity of its workers. And also seeks to provide meaning beyond financial gains.

 

To be an effective leader you must toss out the old playbook.

You must –


➔  Treat employees as assets rather than costs. A company's success depends on the quality of its people. And their ability to work together towards a common goal.

➔  Acquire a deep understanding of the business and the impact of its actions. Effective leaders have a responsibility to make informed decisions that benefit the organization and its people.

➔  Take a holistic approach to problem-solving. Consider the long-term consequences of your decisions. As well as the social and ethical implications.

➔  Be a lifelong learner. Constantly seek to improve your knowledge and skills, adapting to the changing needs of your organization and the world at large.


Embracing Drucker's MLA & Ulukaya's Anti-CEO Playbook for Success in the Modern Business World


In an increasingly interconnected and complex world, businesses and leaders can no longer afford to ignore their responsibility to society and their people. And many have recognized the value of a new way of thinking.

 

These visionary concepts challenge us to rethink the purpose of business. And to embrace a new era of management.

 

Hamdi Ulukaya's TED Talk and Peter Drucker's Management as a Liberal Art converge in their call to prioritize people over profits for a healthy, and well-functioning organization. And to see a business’ place within society as having a responsibility to build better.


It’s time to challenge your assumptions. Think outside the box. And embrace the principles of the MLA and the Anti-CEO Playbook in your own management style. Rewrite the rules, become the anti-hero, and redefine what it means to be a great leader in the modern world.The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.

A Tribute to Charles Handy (1932-2024)

By Karen Linkletter Ph.D. • January 6, 2025
On December 13, 2024, we lost a seminal management philosopher and theorist: Charles Handy. Like Peter Drucker, Handy was a social thinker and management theorist who emphasized the human side of work as more important than profits and valued individual growth and development in organizations. Handy was born in Ireland and studied at Oxford. In 1956, he went to work for Shell, working in Borneo, where he met his future wife, Elizabeth Hill. Disillusioned by corporate life, Handy left Shell in 1962 to study management at MIT in their executive program. Inspired by their humanistic approach, he returned to London in 1967 to start the London Business School. Handy knew Drucker and was a regular keynote speaker at the Global Drucker Forum in Vienna. The two men had much in common in terms of their approaches to management and social theory. Like Drucker, Handy became an author (although, unlike Drucker, Handy was a corporate executive before he turned to writing). Handy wrote not just on business but also society, serving as much as a social ecologist as Drucker was. In his pivotal book, The Age of Unreason (1989), Handy argued for the disruption of discontinuity – resulting in a new world of business, education, and work that was highly unpredictable. He rejected shareholder capitalism and saw the organization as a place for human purpose and fulfillment, based on trust. Like Drucker, Handy advocated federalism in organizations, disseminating authority and responsibility to the lowest possible levels. He also saw “the future that had already happened.” Handy coined the term “portfolio life,” where knowledge workers would increasingly work remotely and for multiple organizations. In the 1980s, he posited that society consisted of “shamrock organizations”: those that had three integrated leaves: full-time employees, outside contractors, and temporary workers. Handy thus foresaw the new “gig economy” and increasingly autonomy of knowledge work. Finally, like Drucker, Handy had a life partner who not only supported his career but was an independent woman with her own interests. Liz Handy, like Doris Drucker, was an entrepreneur who ran an interior design business, and later was a professional photographer and Charles’s business agent.  Minglo Shao, founder of CIAM, remembers Handy as a warm man who made several important contributions to what we see as the fundamentals of Management as a Liberal Art. We are thankful for Handy’s contributions to management theory and social thought, and for his legacy at the Global Drucker Forum in the form of the Charles and Elizabeth Handy Lecture Series.

Treasures from the Charles Handy Drucker Forum legacy

By Richard and Ilse Straub with the Drucker Forum Team • December 29, 2024
For 15 years, Charles Handy did us the enormous honor of choosing the Drucker Forum as a privileged platform for delivering his message to the world, and particularly to the younger generation in which he had such faith. Following up on our initial announcement of Charles’ passing Charles Handy (1932–2024) , we are honored to share a selection of his key contributions to the Forum with our wider community. Charles’ brilliant keynotes at the Drucker Forum have become legendary. Normally accessible only to members of the Drucker Society, from today they are available as recordings to the wider public for a period of 30 days. At the first centennial Forum in 2009, Charles talked about his debt to Peter Drucker while outlining his own fundamental management concepts that he had developed over the years. Two years later, he touched on the ideas of Adam Smith and demonstrated how much more to them there was than the celebrated “invisible hand” of self-interest. In his landmark closing address in 2017, pursuing a thread developed in his 2015 book The Second Curve, he called for a management reformation that would turn it into a tool for the common good – thus drawing the first contours of what we would announce six years later as the Next Management . We took to heart his exhortation not to wait for great leaders but “to start small fires in the darkness, until they spread and the whole world is alight with a better vision of what we could do with our businesses”. Management’s "second curve" will be the focus of the “Charles and Elizabeth Handy Lecture Series” in 2025. Following the loss of his beloved wife Elizabeth in 2018 and a severe stroke, Charles was much reduced in mobility in his last years – but not in his determination to continue spreading his message of hope to the world. He couldn’t participate in person in the Drucker Forum 2022, but he participated in a moving online interview with his son Scott, who directed young actors in a short performance of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot by Beckett to illustrate some points.  Charles also contributed valued digital articles for our blog and for Drucker Forum partners. Even during the most difficult period of his life he continued to write and develop his ideas in weekly columns for the Idler magazine. This entailed first memorizing the article, then dictating it and finally reviewing it by having someone it re-read to him – a remarkable feat of memory and determination. The article is a jewel and most appropriate for Christmas and the season of self-reflection. Have a wonderful Christmas, happy holidays and a healthy and prosperous New Year.

The Future of Knowledge Work: What Drucker can teach us

By Karen Linkletter Ph.D. • November 19, 2024
Interview with Karen Linkletter at the 16th Global Peter Drucker Forum 2024  Video Interview
Show More
Share by: