The world lost a great mind recently. At 95, Peter Drucker, management guru to several generations, passed. He left a legacy of management and leadership thought that will not easily be measured, or matched. Peter was prolific in so many ways and gave so freely of himself; his contributions are enormous. I'm sure there are thousands of other Drucker mentees around the world -- men and women whose lives he touched and changed. And many will write obituaries acknowledging his contribution to their success and to the success of so many organizations.

The memories I want to share focus on Peter Drucker, the person, as I knew him. Peter and I first met in Chicago, where he was presenting "A Day With Peter Drucker" for me when I was with the American Management Association. During my tenure there, Peter regularly did 2 sessions a year and he was a treat to work with.

From the beginning, our conversations were seldom about business. We talked about children -- he cherished the early years (1 to 7) most, while I preferred the experience of the later years. We spoke of family, of mountain hiking, and of mutual acquaintances (Myles Mace and Marshall McLuhan, in particular). When we did talk about business, it was usually about our next program together or how both of us felt we were better as consultants and teachers than as managers. And when I told him I had ordered a lunch designed to keep people on the edge of their seats for the afternoon portion of one of his programs for CEO's (because his strong Austrian accent often made him difficult to understand and because I wanted to make sure everyone heard his message) he laughed and said, "They did seem more attentive."

When his autobiography was published, Confessions of a Bystander, I told him I thought it brave of him to show a more personal side of himself to the world. He retorted that there were also some segments of the book where he felt he had been less than gracious, and he was right. But he did take the risk and the world is richer for it. It is hard to tell the truth about ourselves for all the world to see.

I will remember moments of laughter in cabs, that he liked phone conversations at odd hours (Peter told me that he and McLuhan had been neighbors in New Jersey when he was at NYU and McLuhan was at Fordham. He said they would sometimes get together late in the evening and end up in conversation for most of the night) and that he always treated me as an equal. I will always be grateful our paths crossed.

Who have your mentors been? What do you remember about them? Did their impact on you crossover from business to personal or from personal to business? Who will you mentor? How will you prepare so that you can give as good as you have received?

I think I do my best mentoring when I am in the moment, when I feel as much as I think and when I really listen. Within that context it's a good time of the year to make a resolution to mentor someone in 2006. Yes?