The Effective Executive

by Peter F. Drucker

The problem is rather that the important and relevant outside events are often qualitative and not capable of quantification.

a fact, after all, is an event which somebody has defined, has classified and, above all, has endowed with relevance.

One first has to abstract from the infinite welter of phenomena a specific aspect which one then...

The danger is that executives will become contemptuous of information and stimulus that cannot be reduced to computer logic and computer language. Executives may become blind to everything that is perception (i.e., event) rather than fact (i.e., after the event). The tremendous amount of computer information may thus shut out access to reality.

We will have to run our organizations with men as they are.

The experience of the human race indicates strongly that the only person in abundant supply is

the universal incompetent. We

There is, in other words, no reason why anyone with normal endowment should not acquire competence in any practice. Mastery might well elude him; for this one might need special talents. But what is needed in effectiveness is competence. What is needed are “the scales.”

Everything requires time. It is the one truly universal condition. All work takes place in time and uses up time. Yet most people take for granted this unique, irreplaceable, and necessary resource. Nothing else, perhaps, distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time. Man is ill-equipped to manage his time.

To write a report may, for instance, require six or eight hours, at least for the first draft. It is pointless to give seven hours to the task by spending fifteen minutes twice a day for three weeks. All one has at the end is blank paper with some doodles on it. But if one can lock the door, disconnect the telephone, and sit down to wrestle with the report for five or six hours without interruption, one has a good chance to come up with what I call a “zero draft”—the one before the first draft. From then on, one can indeed work in fairly small installments, can rewrite, correct and edit section by section, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence. The same goes for an experiment. One simply has to have five to twelve hours in a single stretch to set up the apparatus and to do at least one completed run. Or one has to start all over again after an interruption.

amen. spending a little dedicated block of time early on sers you up for success and workbility later on.

And this is time-consuming.

He must also understand the work of the people who have to use his knowledge output. For this, he needs a good deal of information, discussion, instruction—all

Brad is often brilliant , but fails in this respect. How can I coach him to think of those that must us his work?

“What should we at the head of this organization know about your work? What do you want to tell me regarding this organization? Where do you see opportunities we do not exploit? Where do you see dangers to which we are still blind? And, all together, what do you want to know from me about the organization?”

good advice from Drucker

There has been an enormous amount of discussion lately to explain why the British economy has lagged so badly since World War II. One of the reasons is surely that the British businessman of the older generation tried to have it as easy as his workers and to work the same short hours. But this is possible only if the business or the industry clings to the old established routine and shuns innovation and change. For all these reasons, the demands of the organization, the demands of people, the time demands of change and innovation, it will become increasingly important for executives to be able to manage their time. But one cannot even think of managing one’s time unless one first knows where it goes.

I have yet to see an executive, regardless of rank or station, who could not consign something like a quarter of the demands on his time to the wastepaper basket without anybody’s noticing their disappearance.

this only works when some one isnt gunning for you

There has been for years a great deal of talk about “delegation” in management. Every manager whatever the organization—business, government, university, or armed service—has been exhorted to be a better “delegator.” In fact, most managers in large organizations have themselves given this sermon and more than once. I have yet to see any results from all this preaching. The reason why no one listens is simple: As usually presented, delegation makes little sense. If it means that somebody else ought to do part of “my work,” it is wrong. One is paid for doing one’s own work. And if it implies, as the usual sermon does, that the laziest manager is the best manager, it is not only nonsense; it is immoral.

“What do I do that wastes your time without contributing to your effectiveness?”

He sends out a printed form which reads: “I have asked [Messrs Smith, Jones, and Robinson] to meet with me [Wednesday at 3] in [the fourth floor conference room] to discuss budget. Please come if you think that you need the information or want to take part in the discussion. But you will in any event receive right away a full summary of the discussion and of any decisions reached, together with a request for your comments.” Where formerly a dozen people came and stayed all afternoon, three men and a secretary to take the notes now get the matter over with within an hour or so. And no one feels left out.

A recurrent crisis should always have been foreseen. It can therefore either be prevented or reduced to a routine which clerks can manage. The definition of a “routine” is that it makes unskilled people without judgment capable of doing what it took near-genius to do before; for a routine puts down in systematic, step-by-step form what a very able man learned in surmounting yesterday’s crisis. The recurrent crisis is not confined to the lower levels

Similarly a well-managed organization is a “dull” organization. The “dramatic” things in such an organization are basic decisions that make the future, rather than heroics in mopping up yesterday.

Time-wasting management defects such as overstaffing, malorganization, or malfunctioning information can sometimes be remedied fast. At other times, it takes long, patient work to correct them. The results of such work are, however, great—and especially in terms of time gained.

lack of system or foresight to prevent foreseeable problems

One of the most accomplished time managers I have ever met was the president of a big bank with whom I worked for two years on top-management structure. I saw him once a month for two years. My appointment was always for an hour and a half. The president was always prepared for the sessions—and I soon learned to do my homework too. There was never more than one item on the agenda. But when I had been in there for an hour and twenty minutes, the president would turn to me and say, “Mr. Drucker, I believe you’d better sum up now and outline what we should do next.” And an hour and thirty minutes after I had been ushered into his office, he was at the door shaking my hand and saying good-by. After this had been going on for about one year, I finally asked him, “Why always an hour and a half?” He answered, “That’s easy. I have found out that my attention span is about an hour and a half. If I work on any one topic longer than this, I begin to repeat myself. At the same time, I have learned that nothing of importance can really be tackled in much less time. One does not get to the point where one understands what one is talking about.”

The effective executive therefore knows that he has to consolidate his discretionary time. He knows that he needs large chunks of time and that small driblets are no time at all. Even one quarter of the working day, if consolidated in large time units, is usually enough to get the important things done. But even three quarters of the working day are useless if they are only available as fifteen minutes here or half an hour there.

Time is the scarcest resource, and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed. The analysis of one’s time, moreover, is the one easily accessible and yet systematic way to analyze one’s work and to think through what really matters in it.

The man who focuses on efforts and who stresses his downward authority is a subordinate no matter how exalted his title and rank. But the man who focuses on contribution and who takes responsibility for results, no matter how junior, is in the most literal sense of the phrase, “top management.” He holds himself accountable for the performance of the whole.

A highly respected university scientist, who had for many years worked closely with the agency, finally told the administrator: “The former director was writing for us; your new man writes at us.”

“What can I contribute to the results of this agency?” His answer was, “I can interest the young scientists on the outside in our work, can make them want to come to work for us.”

To ask, “What can I contribute?” is to look for the unused potential in the job. And what is considered excellent performance in a good many positions is often but a pale shadow of the job’s full potential of contribution.

Executives who do not ask themselves, “What can I contribute?” are not only likely to aim too low, they are likely to aim at the wrong things. Above all, they may define their contribution too narrowly.

For every organization needs performance in three major areas: It needs direct results; building of values and their reaffirmation; and building and developing people for tomorrow. If

An organization which just perpetuates today’s level of vision, excellence, and accomplishment has lost the capacity to adapt.

An executive’s focus on contribution by itself is a powerful force in developing people. People adjust to the level of the demands made on them. The executive who sets his sights on contribution, raises the sights and standards of everyone with whom he works.

Commitment to contribution is commitment to responsible effectiveness. Without it, a man shortchanges himself, deprives his organization, and cheats the people he works with.

Robert E. Sherwood, a most effective administrator in the large Office of War Information (and the author of one of the most perceptive books on effectiveness in power *) had been a playwright whose earlier “organization” had consisted of his own desk and typewriter.

look this up

“What can I and no one else do which, if done really well, would make a real difference to this company?”

McNamara, who at Ford had been the perfect “inside”

mcnamara as an ideal executive seems increfibly difficult to swalow.

man, was for instance totally innocent of politics and tried to leave congressional liaison to subordinates. But after a few weeks, he realized that the Secretary of Defense depends on congressional understanding and support. As a result, he forced himself to do what for so publicity-shy and nonpolitical a man must have been both difficult and distasteful: to cultivate Congress, to get to know the influential men on the congressional committees, and to acquire a mastery of the strange art of congressional infighting. He has surely not been completely successful in his dealings with Congress, but he has done better than any earlier Secretary. The McNamara story shows that the higher the position an executive holds, the larger will the outside loom in his contribution. No one else in the organization can as a rule move as freely on the outside.

i dont get this line of reasoning McNamara is to blam frnso.much of the folly of Amerixan adventurenjnthe 1960s

The man of knowledge has always been expected to take responsibility for being understood. It is barbarian arrogance to assume that the layman can or should make the effort to understand him, and that it is enough if the man of knowledge talks to a handful of fellow experts who are his peers. Even

amen!

contribution—he has to concern himself with the usability of his “product”—that is, his knowledge.

“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?”

The focus on contribution by itself supplies the four basic requirements of effective human relations: communications; teamwork; self-development; and development of others.

traditional concepts and theories are totally inadequate. Knowledge workers must be professionals in their attitude toward their own field of knowledge. They must consider themselves responsible for their own competence and for the standards of their work.

Effective executives know what they expect to get out of a meeting, a report, or a presentation and what the purpose of the occasion is or should be. They ask themselves: “Why are we having this meeting? Do we want a decision, do we want to inform, or do we want to make clear to ourselves what we should be doing?” They insist that the purpose be thought through and spelled out before a meeting is called, a report asked for, or a presentation organized. They insist that the meeting serve the contribution to which they have committed themselves.

The effective man always states at the outset of a meeting the specific purpose and contribution it is to achieve. He makes sure that the meeting addresses itself to this purpose. He does not allow a meeting called to inform to degenerate into a “bull session” in which everyone has bright ideas. But a meeting called by him to stimulate thinking and ideas also does not become simply a presentation on the part of one of the members, but is run to challenge and stimulate everybody in the room. He always, at the end of his meetings, goes back to the opening statement and relates the final conclusions to the original intent.

To focus on contribution is to focus on effectiveness.

one cannot build on weakness.

Whoever tries to place a man or staff an organization to avoid weakness will end up at best with mediocrity. The idea that there are “well-rounded” people, people who have only strengths and no weaknesses (whether the term used is the “whole man,” the “mature personality,” the “well-adjusted personality,” or the “generalist”) is a prescription for mediocrity if not for incompetence. Strong people always have strong weaknesses too. Where there are peaks, there are valleys. And no one is strong in many areas. Measured against the universe of human knowledge, experience, and abilities, even the greatest genius would have to be rated a total failure. There is no such thing as a “good man.” Good for what? is the question.

i disagree with Drucker's assertion

“Here lies a man who knew how to bring into his service men better than he was himself.”

excellence. Human excellence can only be achieved in one area, or at the most in very few. People

no polymaths?

To staff from what there is not and to focus on weakness is wasteful—a misuse, if not abuse, of the human resource. To focus on strength

doeant this run counter to every union contract ever wditten?