Interview with Frances Hesselbein

Frances Hesselbein is the former Chief Executive Officer of Girl Scouts of the U.S.A and the founding President of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management. In this interview she describes her first encounter with Drucker at a reception in New York, where she met him, “…quite by chance.” She then goes on to explain how Peter Drucker and his teachings have influenced the Girl Scouts organization. Hesselbein tells how in his first speech to the Girl Scouts’ Board of Directors he surprised them by saying that they did not realize how important the organization was because, “…we live in a society that pretends to care about its children, but it does not.” From there she goes on to discuss Drucker’s article, “What Business can learn from Nonprofits” and how it changed organizations and pointed out three powerful lessons that businesses could learn from nonprofits. The first of these lessons was, governance and the use of the board and its appropriate role. The second lesson was the power of mission and lastly, how to lead rather than manage a workforce. She then discusses the development of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management and both her and Drucker’s roles in its development and success. She then goes on to explain Drucker’s ability to distill language and his advice that an organization’s mission statement should be short enough to fit on a t-shirt.