The Effective Executive

Peter F. Drucker
1966
 Effectiveness
• Executive must manage themselves for effectiveness if they expect
others to follow
• Intelligence, hard work and knowledge are not enough, others must
use our output (results)
• Effectiveness often goes opposite the flow of events
• Effective results always external impact
• Survival of the organization depends on producing the maximum
contribution with the minimum of effort
• Focus on maximum contribution imposes relevance on events.
• To focus on contribution is to focus on effectiveness
 It Can Be Learned
• Don’t do things right, do the right things
• Effectiveness converts intelligence, imagination and knowledge into
results
– can’t be measured by traditional metrics
– works from changes in trends not from events
– others must make use of what we contribute
• Efficiency (manual work) do things right
– Not applicable to knowledge work
– There are no results within an organization
– Organizations are measured by their contribution to outside world
– Need for resources grows with the cube of the size
 5 Practices
• 1) Know where time goes
• 2) Focus on results, not effort
• 3) Build on strengths (Grant)
• 4) Do what counts (Priorities)
• 5) Make effective decisions (page 24)
– Judgement based on “dissenting opinions”
– Focus on a few right strategies
– Minimize razzle-dazzle tactics
 Time
• Record it
• Manage it
• Consolidate it
• This is the ultimate finite limiting factor
• Memory is not an accurate way to record time
• It takes a long time to make people decisions (1 year)
• Time in long continuous uninterrupted units is needed to decide who to group for
problems (1st Year)
• The more physical work you want to eliminate the more mental work you must
do
• Recurrent crisis is laziness
• Don’t overstaff
• Don’t have too many meetings
 Results
• I must make a significant contribute to the positive external results of my
organization.
• What is the unused potential in my job?
• I must produce knowledge, ideas, information and concepts.
• The must make my specialty useful.
• I must take responsibility for being understood
• I must be sure to provide that which others need
• A “generalist” is a specialist that is universally understood.
• It is the focus on “contribution” that leads to the communication that creates
synergy.
• Effective work comes from the discipline necessary to blend diverse
knowledge into a collective success
 Effective Meeting
• Why are we having this meeting
• Decision? Inform? Increase Focus?
• What is the purpose and contribution
• You can listen and direct a meeting
• You can take part
• You can’t do both!!!!!!
• Always focus on the expected contribution
 Strengths are Opportunities
• Unified strengths make individual weaknesses irrelevant
• Staff to maximize strengths
– “Find out what Grant is drinking and send a barrel to the other generals”
Lincoln
– “Here lies a man that who knew how to bring into his service men better
than he was himself” epitaph for Andrew Carnegie
• Design jobs that are doable, demanding and large
– must have enough challenge to bring out undiscovered strengths
• Start with what they can do rather than what the job requires
• Lead from personal strengths
 First Things First
• Do one thing at a time
• Executives not pressure should make the decisions
• We often abandon that which we postpone
• Achievement does not depend on ability, it depends on the courage to go
after the opportunity.
• Set your priorities by opportunities presented not by the likelihood of
quick success.
• It is just as risky to do something small and new as it is to do something
big and new
• Concentration - the courage to impose decisions on time and events
• Focus on the completion of the one task now and let the situation to
decide what is next
 Decision Making
• The specific executive task
• Effective executives make effective decisions
• Effective executives concentrate on the important
decisions
– The decision is strategic
– The decision is based on abstractions at the highest level of
conceptual understanding
– The decision leads to real, effective simple action
– The decision is based on a few important variables
– The decision is sound and makes a real impact
 Elements of the Decision
• Is the problem the symptom or the disease
• Bound the decision
– Most difficult step
– Exercise in judgement
– Even wrong decisions should fill boundary conditions
– 1/2 loaf and 1/2 baby one fills boundary conditions
• What is right verse what is acceptable
– postpone the compromise until the end
• Built in Action
– most time consuming
– who needs to know, what action, by who
• Feedback
 Effective Decisions
• Decision is a judgement
• Balance between “Almost right” and “Probably Wrong”
• Right decisions grow out of the clash and conflict of divergent opinions
• Right decisions grow on the consideration of competing alternatives
• Events are not facts, we must have a criterion of relevance
• People always start with an opinion
• Most look for facts that already fit the conclusions that they have reached.
• Traditional measurements are often not the right measurements
• Look for different ways to measure success.
• Don’t make a decision until there is disagreement.
• The right decision demands adequate disagreement.
• Disagreements is the birth of alternatives
• Disagreement is needed to stimulate the imagination
 Effective Decisions
• Not going to be pleasant
• Not going to be popular
• Not going to be easy
• Decision making takes as much courage as it does
judgement
• The cry of the coward “Let’s make another study”
• Decisions on the operating level are adaptations and
require no real knowledge.
 Effectiveness Must be Learned
• Record your time
• Focus on your contribution
• Move forward based on your strengths
• Do first things first
• Make effective decisions