More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
While the others complain about their inability to do anything, the effective executives go ahead and do.
the effective executive tries to be himself; he does not pretend to be someone else. He looks at his own performance and at his own results and tries to discern a pattern. “What are the things,” he asks, “that I seem to be able to do with relative ease, while they come rather hard to other people?”
In every area of effectiveness within an organization, one feeds the opportunities and starves the problems. Nowhere is this more important than in respect to people. The effective executive looks upon people including himself as an opportunity.
If leadership performance is high, the average will go up. The effective executive knows that it is easier to raise the performance of one leader than it is to raise the performance of a whole mass.
multiply performance capacity of the whole by putting to use whatever strength, whatever health, whatever aspiration there is in individuals.
Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time.
There are always more important contributions to be made than there is time available to make them.
For doing one thing at a time means doing it fast. The more one can concentrate time, effort, and resources, the greater the number and diversity of tasks one can actually perform.
The unexpected always happens—the unexpected is indeed the only thing one can confidently expect. And almost never is it a pleasant surprise. Effective executives therefore allow a fair margin of time beyond what is actually needed.
Effective executives do not race. They set an easy pace but keep going steadily.
Today is always the result of actions and decisions taken yesterday.
“Is this still worth doing?” And if it isn’t, he gets rid of it so as to be able to concentrate on the few tasks that, if done with excellence, will really make a difference
The only question is which will make the decision—the executive or the pressures.
one actually abandons what one postpones
Pick the future as against the past; • Focus on opportunity rather than on problem; • Choose your own direction—rather than climb on the bandwagon; and • Aim high, aim for something that will make a difference, rather than for something that is “safe” and easy to do.
Priorities and posteriorities always have to be reconsidered and revised in the light of realities.
They try to make the few important decisions on the highest level of conceptual understanding. They try to find the constants in a situation.
They all tackled a problem at the highest conceptual level of understanding. They tried to think through what the decision was all about, and then tried to develop a principle for dealing with it. Their decisions were, in other words, strategic, rather than adaptations to the apparent needs of the moment.
1. The clear realization that the problem was generic and could only be solved through a decision which established a rule, a principle; 2. The definition of the specifications which the answer to the problem had to satisfy, that is, of the “boundary conditions”; 3. The thinking through what is “right,” that is, the solution which will fully satisfy the specifications before attention is given to the compromises, adaptations, and concessions needed to make the decision acceptable; 4. The building into the decision of the action to carry it out; 5. The “feedback” which tests the
...more
Truly unique events, however, must be treated individually. One cannot develop rules for the exceptional.
The effective decision-maker, therefore, always assumes initially that the problem is generic. He always assumes that the event that clamors for his attention is in reality a symptom. He looks for the true problem. He is not content with doctoring the symptom alone.
converting the decision into effective action is usually the most time-consuming one.
no decision has been made unless carrying it out in specific steps has become someone’s work assignment and responsibility. Until then, there are only good intentions.
Who has to know of this decision? What action has to be taken? Who is to take it? And what does the action have to be so that the people who have to do it can do it?
make sure that their measurements, their standards for accomplishment, and their incentives are changed simultaneously.
“What do we have to know to test the validity of this hypothesis?” “What would the facts have to be to make this opinion tenable?”
Unless one has considered alternatives, one has a closed mind.
Decisions of the kind the executive has to make are not made well by acclamation. They are made well only if based on the clash of conflicting views, the dialogue between different points of view, the choice between different judgments.
Disagreement converts the plausible into the right and the right into the good decision.
The effective decision-maker does not start out with the assumption that one proposed course of action is right and that all others must be wrong. Nor does he start out with the assumption, “I am right and he is wrong.” He starts out with the commitment to find out why people disagree.
“Is a decision really necessary?” One alternative is always the alternative of doing nothing.
Act if on balance the benefits greatly outweigh cost and risk; and • Act or do not act; but do not “hedge” or compromise.
“Is there any reason to believe that additional study will produce anything new? And is there reason to believe that the new is likely to be relevant?” And if the answer is “no”—as it usually is—the effective executive does not permit another study.
The first replied: “I am making a living.” The second kept on hammering while he said: “I am doing the best job of stonecutting in the entire county.” The third one looked up with a visionary gleam in his eyes and said: “I am building a cathedral.” The last person is the one who is ready for effectiveness. He is focused outward, on contribution.
Although analysis should always shape and inform action, it cannot provide the initial spark required to create action. Courage is what serves that special purpose. Without courage, an executive in possession of the most brilliant idea in history can only ponder what might be. With courage, knowledge becomes productive.
“Pick the future as against the past. Focus on opportunity rather than on problem. Choose your own direction—rather than climb on the bandwagon. And aim high, aim for something that will make a difference, rather than for something that is ‘safe’ and easy to do.”
