The Effective Executive

by Peter F. Drucker

Effective organizations are not common. They are even rarer than effective executives. There are shining examples here and there. But on the whole, organization performance is still primitive. Enormous resources are brought together in the modern large business, in the modern large government agency, in the modern large

hospital, or in the university; yet far too much of the result is mediocrity, far too much is splintering of efforts, far too much is devoted to yesterday or to avoiding decision and action. Organizations as well as executives need to work systematically on effectiveness and need to acquire the habit of effectiveness. They need to learn to feed their opportunities and to starve their problems.

They need to work on making strength productive. They need to concentrate and to set priorities instead of trying ...

The executive who works at making strengths productive—his own as well as those of others—works at making organizational performance compatible with personal achievement. He works at making his knowledge area become organizational opportunity. And by focusing on contribution, he makes his own values become organization results.

The knowledge worker demands economic rewards too. Their absence is a deterrent. But their presence is not enough. He needs opportunity, he needs achievement, he needs fulfillment, he needs values. Only