Managing Oneself (Harvard Business Review Classics)

by Peter F. Drucker

History’s great achievers—a Napoléon, a da Vinci, a Mozart—have always managed themselves.

Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong. More often, people know what they are not good at—and even then more people are wrong than right.

And yet, a person can perform only from strength.

One cannot build performance on weaknesses, let alone on something ...

strengths. A person was born into a position and a line of work: The peasant’s son would also be a peasant; the artisan’s daughter, an artisan’s wife; and so on. But...

feedback analysis.

write down what you expect will happen.

Nine or 12 months later, compare the actual results with ...

where your strengths lie—

First and foremost,

concentrate on your strengths.

Put yourself where your strengths can pr...

Se...

improving your st...

Third,

intellectual arrogance

disabling ignorance and overcome it. Far too many ...

This is a totally new concept

acquiring the skills and knowledge you need

remedy your bad habits—

Like so many brilliant people, he believes that ideas move mountains. But bulldozers move mountains; ideas show where the bulldozers should go to work.

is a lack of manners.

Comparing your expectations with your results also indicates what not to do.

One should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence.

WOw wait what ?? that is AMAZING DOn't waste time on your weakness, but spend all time on perfecting your strenght

takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.

Energy, resources, and time should go instead to making a competent person into a star performer.

that different people work and perform differently.

For knowledge workers, How do I perform? may be an even more important question than What are my strengths?

The second thing to know about how one performs is to know how one learns.

who learn by writing.

This sounds like my type of learning

people learn by taking copious notes.

“If I don’t write it down immediately, I forget it right away. If I put it into a sketchbook, I never forget it and I never have to look it up again.”

people learn by doing.

Others learn by hearing thems...

or questions; he simply needed an audience to hear himself talk.

Am I a reader or a listener? and How do I learn? are the first questions to ask.

But they are by no means the only ones. To manage yourself effectively, you also have to ask, Do I work well with people, or am I a loner? And if you do work well with people, you then must ask, In what relationship?

Do I produce results as a decision maker or as an adviser?

Too many good questions to ponder

Do I perform well under stress, or do I need a highly structured and predictable environment?

Do not try to change yourself—you are unlikely to succeed.

Wow this is new

But work hard to improve the way you perform. And try not to take on work you cannot perform or will only perform poorly.

What kind of person do I want to see in the mirror in the morning?

have to learn to ask a question that has not been asked before: What should my contribution be?

situation

how can I make the greatest c...

What results have to b...

Where and how can I achieve results that will make a difference within the next year and a half

The first is to accept the fact that other people are as much individuals as you yourself are.

The second part of relationship responsibility is taking responsibility for communication.