The Effective Executive

by Peter F. Drucker

around, and what they are trying to do. One need not know psychiatry to be a good urologist. But one had better know what psychiatry is all about. One need not be an international lawyer to do a good job in the Department of Agriculture. But one had better know enough

increasing effectiveness. If one cannot increase the supply of a resource, one must increase its yield.

Effective executives focus on outward contribution. They gear their efforts to results rather than to work. They start out with the question, “What results are expected

Effective executives build on strengths—their own strengths, the strengths of their superiors, colleagues, and subordinates; and on the strengths in the situation, that is, on what they can do. They do not build on weakness.

Effective executives concentrate on the few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results.

fast means to make the wrong decisions. What is needed are few, but fundamental, decisions. What is needed is the right strategy rather than razzle-dazzle tactics.

But the man who focuses on contribution and who takes responsibility for results, no matter how junior, is

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.

In a business, they are economic results such as sales and profits.

Finally, organization is, to a large extent, a means of overcoming the limitations mortality sets to what any one man can contribute.

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.

Though Nurse Bryan herself had retired almost ten years earlier, the standards she had set still made demands on people who in terms of training and position were her superiors.

That he asked himself, “What can I contribute?” also seems to explain in large part the extraordinary effectiveness of Robert McNamara as U.S. Secretary of Defense—a position for

in their different ways, built their relationship to people—their superiors, their colleagues, and their subordinates—around contribution.

communications; teamwork; self-development; and development of others.

But executives who take responsibility for contribution in their own work will as a rule demand that their subordinates take responsibility too.

The man who asks of himself, “What is the most important contribution I can make to the performance of this organization?” asks in effect, “What self-development do I need? What knowledge and skill do I have to acquire to make the contribution I should be making? What strengths do I have to put to work? What standards do I have to set myself?”

according to what they consider to be achievement and attainment. If they demand little of themselves, they will remain stunted. If they demand a good deal of themselves, they will grow to giant stature—without any more effort than is expended by the nonachievers.

The effective man always states at the outset of a meeting the specific purpose and contribution it is to achieve.

Focusing on contribution turns one of the inherent weaknesses of the executive’s situation—his dependence on other people, his being within the organization—into a source of strength. It creates a team.

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.

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

does not matter how many tantrums a prima donna throws as long as she brings in the customers.

“What does he contribute?” Their question is never “What can a man not do?” Their question is always “What can he do uncommonly well?” In staffing they look for excellence in one major area, and not for performance that gets by all around.

only in the area of design despite his manifold interests; if Goethe’s poetry had been lost and all that were known of his work were his dabblings in optics and philosophy, he would not even rate a footnote in the most learned encyclopedia.

And by staying aloof they were able to build teams of great diversity but also of strength.

He knows that the test of organization is not genius. It is its capacity to make common people achieve uncommon performance.

What is needed in knowledge work is not this or that particular skill, but a configuration, and this will be revealed only by the test of performance.

young knowledge worker should, therefore, ask himself early: “Am I in the right work and in the right place for my strengths to tell?”

What we do need to know are the strengths of a man and what he can do. Your appraisals are not even interested in this.” Western psychologists—especially those that design appraisals—might well disagree. But this is how every executive, whether Japanese, American, or German, sees the traditional appraisals.

the group who can do the job. They always look for strength.

“If I had a son or daughter, would I be willing to have him or her work under this person?”

Similarly, the politician who does not with every fiber in his body want to be President or Prime Minister is not likely to be remembered as a statesman.

“Does this man have strength in one major area? And is this strength relevant to the task? If he achieves

Altogether it must be an unbreakable rule to promote the man who by the test of performance is best qualified for the job to be filled.

removed a serious limitation on his great strength as a team-builder and tactical planner.

overcome his limitations. The effective ones ask instead: “What can the new boss do?” And if the answer is: “He is good at relationships with Congress, the White House, and the public,”

If there is any one “secret” of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time.

This is the “secret” of those people who “do so many things” and apparently so many difficult things. They do only one at a time. As a result, they need much less time in the end than the rest of us.

as every executive knows, nothing ever goes right.

Effective executives do not race. They set an easy pace but keep going steadily.

An organization needs to bring in fresh people with fresh points of view fairly often. If it only promotes from within it soon becomes inbred and eventually sterile. But if at all possible, one does not bring in the newcomers where the risk is exorbitant—

Most executives have learned that what one postpones, one actually abandons.

religious drive to become a medical missionary. But otherwise he will find the discipline and rote learning of medical school irksome beyond endurance, and medical practice itself humdrum and a bore.

Courage rather than analysis dictates the truly important rules for identifying priorities:

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.

below the genius level of an Einstein, a Niels Bohr, or a Max Planck) depends less on ability in doing research than on the courage to go after opportunity.

Achievement goes to the people who pick their research priorities by the opportunity and who consider other criteria only as qualifiers rather than as determinants.

a rule it is just as risky, just as arduous, and just as uncertain to do something small that is new as it is to do something big that is new.

could. This led to Vairs early decision that the business of the Bell Telephone Company must be anticipation and satisfaction of the service requirements of the public.