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Started reading
November 16, 2018
#1: First, manage thyself.
The ratio of a leader’s performance to those on his or her team remains constant; therefore, if you want the average performance of those around you to go up, you must first improve your own performance.
#2: Do what you’re made for.
Your first responsibility is to determine your own distinctive competences—what you can do uncommonly well, what you are truly made for—and then navigate your life and career in direct alignment.
#3: Work how you work best (and let others do the same).
#4: Count your time, and make it count.
what gets measured gets managed.
The “secret” of people who do so many difficult things, writes Drucker, is that they do only one thing at a time; they refuse to let themselves be squandered away in “small driblets [that] are no time at all.”
First, create unbroken blocks for individual think time, preferably during the most lucid time of day; these pockets of quietude might be only ninety minutes, but even the busiest executive must do them with regularity. Second, create chunks of deliberately unstructured time for people and the inevitable stuff that comes up. Third, engage in meetings that matter, making particular use of carefully constructed standing meetings that can be the heartbeat of dialogue, debate, and decision; and use some of your think time to prepare and follow up.
#5: Prepare better ...
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preparation with a clear purpose in mind (“why are we having this meeting?”) and disciplined follow-up.
#6: Don’t make a hundred decisions when one will do.
those who grasp Buffett’s point that “inactivity can be very intelligent behavior” are much more effective than those who make hundreds of decisions with no coherent concept.
#7: Find your one big distinctive impact.
#8: Stop what you would not start.
The presence of an ever-expanding to-do list without a robust stop-doing list is a lack of discipline.
#9: Run lean.
The accomplishments of a single right person in a key seat dwarf the combined accomplishment of dividing the seat among multiple B-players. Get better people, give them really big things to do, enlarge their responsibilities, and let them work.
#10: Be useful.
How can we make society both more productive and more humane?
“The question is: how to be useful!”
never confuse scale of impact with scale of organization.
All the effective ones have had to learn to be effective. And all of them then had to practice effectiveness until it became habit.
They asked, “What needs to be done?” • They asked, “What is right for the enterprise?” • They developed action plans. • They took responsibility for decisions. • They took responsibility for communicating. • They were focused on opportunities rather than problems. • They ran productive meetings. • They thought and said “we” rather than “I.”
The first practice is to ask what needs to be done. Note that the question is not “What do I want to do?” Asking what has to be done, and taking the question seriously, is crucial for managerial success. Failure to ask this question will render even the ablest executive ineffectual.
effective executives do not splinter themselves. They concentrate on one task if at all possible.
tasks. I have never encountered an executive who remains effective while tackling more than two tasks at a time.
have never encountered an executive who remains effective while tackling more than two tasks at a time.
“What needs to be done now?”
He asked himself which of the two or three tasks at the top of the list he himself was best suited to undertake. Then he concentrated on that task; the others he delegated.
the others he delegated.
In the successful family company, a relative is promoted only if he or she is measurably superior to all nonrelatives on the same level.
Asking “What is right for the enterprise?” does not guarantee that the right decision will be made. Even the most brilliant executive is human and thus prone to mistakes and prejudices. But failure to ask the question virtually guarantees the wrong decision.
The action plan is a statement of intentions rather than a commitment. It must not become a straitjacket. It should be revised often, because every success creates new opportunities. So does every failure.
the action plan needs to create a system for checking the results against the expectations.
The first check comes halfway through the plan’s time period; for example, at nine months. The second occurs at the end, before the next action plan is drawn up.
the action plan has to become the basis for the executive...
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decision-making, communication, opportunities (as opposed to problems), and meetings.
A decision has not been made until people know: • the name of the person accountable for carrying it out; • the deadline; • the names of the people who will be affected by the decision and therefore have to know about, understand, and approve it—or at least not be strongly opposed to it; and • the names of the people who have to be informed of the decision, even if they are not directly affected by it.
Effective executives know this and check up (six to nine months later) on the results of their people decisions. If they find that a decision has not had the desired results, they don’t conclude that the person has not performed. They conclude, instead, that they themselves made a mistake.
Executives also owe it to the organization and to their fellow workers not to tolerate nonperforming individuals in important jobs. It may not be the employees’ fault that they are underperforming, but even so, they have to be removed.
organizations are held together by information rather than by ownership or command.
Good executives focus on opportunities rather than problems. Problems have to be taken care of, of course; they must not be swept under the rug. But problem solving, however necessary, does not produce results. It prevents damage. Exploiting opportunities produces results.
Effective executives also make sure that problems do not overwhelm opportunities.
Effective executives put their best people on opportunities rather than on problems.
One way to staff for opportunities is to ask each member of the management group to prepare two lists every six months—a list of opportunities for the entire enterprise and a list of the best-performing people throughout the enterprise. These are discussed, then melded into two master lists, and the best people are matched with the best opportunities.
if they are to be effective, executives must make meetings productive. They must make sure that meetings are work sessions rather than bull sessions.
The key to running an effective meeting is to decide in advance what kind of meeting it will be.
Making a meeting productive takes a good deal of self-discipline. It requires that executives determine what kind of meeting is appropriate and then stick to that format. It’s also necessary to terminate the meeting as soon as its specific purpose has been accomplished. Good executives don’t raise another matter for discussion. They sum up and adjourn.
Good follow-up is just as important as the meeting itself.
