The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done (Harperbusiness Essentials)
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These are essentially five such practices—five such habits of the mind that have to be acquired to be an effective executive:
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Another common time-waster is malorganization. Its symptom is an excess of meetings. Meetings are by definition a concession to deficient organization for one either meets or one works. One cannot do both at the same time. In an ideally designed structure (which in a changing world is of course only a dream) there would be no meetings. Everybody would know what he needs to know to do his job. Everyone would have the resources available to him to do his job.
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An organization in which everybody meets all the time is an organization in which no one gets anything done.
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people in an organization find themselves in meetings a quarter of their time or more—there is time-wasting malorganization.
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“What contribution from me do you require to make your contribution to the organization? When do you need this, how do you need it, and in what form?”
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it will give him immunity against the arrogance of the learned—that degenerative disease which destroys knowledge and deprives it of beauty and effectiveness.
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The focus on contribution by itself supplies the four basic requirements of effective human relations:             • communications;             • teamwork;             • self-development; and             • development of others.
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one can either direct a meeting and listen for the important things
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being said, or one can take part and talk; one cannot do both). But the cardinal rule is to focus it from the start on contribution.
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For a superior to focus on weakness, as our appraisals require him to do, destroys the integrity of his relationship with his subordinates.
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They need to concentrate and to set priorities instead of trying to do a little bit of everything.
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Ultimately, the effective executive must set a large number of posteriorities—tasks one chooses not to tackle—so as to focus with exquisite clarity on a small number of priorities.
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Focus on opportunity rather than on problem. Choose your own direction—rather than climb on the bandwagon.
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And aim high, aim for something that will make a difference, rather than for something that is ‘safe’ and easy to do.”