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？這個問題的一個好答案來自已故的彼得•德魯克(Peter Drucker，又譯杜拉克)，在管理學的百年歷史上，他的光芒蓋過了所有人。

    德魯克出生于奧地利維也納，是一名知識分子，曾作過記者，研究過經濟學。后來他在研究中頓悟出：經濟學家感興趣的是商品的運行，而我則對人的行為感興趣。這實際上引導他創建了現代管理學。

    德魯克將管理者的工作分成了五項基本任務。他寫道，管理者應該：

    1) 確定目標。管理者為團隊制定目標，決定需要做哪些工作來實現目標。

    2) 組織協調。管理者將工作分成可管理的各個活動，并選擇人員來完成所需的任務。

    3) 激勵與溝通。管理者通過薪酬、安排和提升等決策手段，通過他與團隊的溝通交流，從手下人中創建出一個團隊。德魯克還將這點稱為是管理者的“整合”功能。

    4) 進行衡量。管理者確定適當的目標和標準，然后分析、評估和詮釋業績。

    5) 發展人員。隨著知識工作者的增加，這個任務變得越來越重要。在知識經濟中，人才是公司最為重要的資產，而開發這一資產則是管理者的職責。

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