The Effective Executive

by Peter F. Drucker

I have not come across a single “natural”: an executive who was born effective. All the effective ones have had to learn to be effective. And all of them then had to practice effectiveness until it became habit. But all the ones who worked on making themselves effective executives succeeded in doing so. Effectiveness can be learned—and it also has to be learned.

And productivity for the knowledge worker means the ability to get the right things done. It means effectiveness.

Knowledge work is not defined by quantity. Neither is knowledge work defined by its costs. Knowledge work is defined by its results. And for these, the size of the group and the magnitude of the managerial job are not even symptoms.

The realities of the executive’s situation both demand effectiveness from him and make effectiveness exceedingly difficult to achieve. Indeed, unless executives work at becoming effective, the realities of their situation will push them into futility.

Unless he makes special efforts to gain direct access to outside reality, he will become increasingly inside-focused. The higher up in the organization he goes, the more will his attention be drawn to problems and challenges of the inside rather than to events on the outside.

The truly important events on the outside are not the trends. They are changes in the trends.

We will have to learn to build organizations in such a manner that any man who has strength in one important area is capable of putting it to work (as will be discussed in considerable depth in Chapter 4 below). But we cannot expect to get the executive performance we need by raising our standards for abilities, let alone by hoping for the universally gifted man. We will have to extend the range of human beings through the tools they have to work with rather than through a sudden quantum jump in human ability.

To every practice applies what my old piano teacher said to me in exasperation when I was a small boy. “You will never play Mozart the way Arthur Schnabel does, but there is no reason in the world why you should not play your scales the way he does.” What the piano teacher forgot to add—probably because it was so obvious to her—is that even the great pianists could not play Mozart as they do unless they practiced their scales and kept on practicing them. 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.” These are essentially five such practices—five such habits of the mind that have to be acquired to be an effective executive:

1. Effective executives know where their time goes. They work systematically at managing the little of their time that can be brought under their control. 2. 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 of me?” rather than with the work to be done, let alone with its techniques and tools. 3. 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. They do not start out with the things they cannot do. 4. Effective executives concentrate on the few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results. They force themselves to set priorities and stay with their priority decisions. They know that they have no choice but to do first things first—and second things not at all. The alternative is to get nothing done. 5. Effective executives, finally, make effective decisions. They know that this is, above all, a matter of system—of the right steps in the right sequence. They know that an effective decision is always a judgment based on “dissenting opinions” rather than on “consensus on the facts.” And they know that to make many decisions fast means to make the wrong decisions. What is needed are few, but fundamental, decisions. What is needed is the right strategy rather tha...

Personal Kanban is a tool that helps you do just that. Unplanned work will always happen. So will meetings, planned or unplanned.

1. Effective executives know where their time goes. They work systematically at managing the little of their time that can be brought under their control. 2. 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 of me?” rather than with the work to be done, let alone with its techniques and tools. 3. 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. They do not start out with the things they cannot do. 4. Effective executives concentrate on the few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results. They force themselves to set priorities and stay with their priority decisions. They know that they have no choice but to do first things first—and second things not at all. The alternative is to get nothing done. 5. Effective executives, finally, make effective decisions. They know that this is, above all, a matter of system—of the right steps in the right sequence. They know that an effective decision is always a judgment based on “dissenting opinions” rather than on “consensus on the facts.” And they know that to make many decisions fast means to make the wrong decisions. What is needed are few, but fundamental, decisions. What is needed is the right strategy rather tha...

Note the subtle reference here to the labor theory of value. More work does NOT equal greater value. Change your mindset to focus on results (external value) FIRST, and only then work your way down to a specific path to get there. Make sure you choose a path with the least inputs of land/labor/capital. This is efficiency, which is not necessarily effectiveness. Nor is productivity effectiveness. Productivity isn't very meaningful unless it's effective, to say nothing about its efficiency.

1. Effective executives know where their time goes. They work systematically at managing the little of their time that can be brought under their control. 2. 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 of me?” rather than with the work to be done, let alone with its techniques and tools. 3. 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. They do not start out with the things they cannot do. 4. Effective executives concentrate on the few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results. They force themselves to set priorities and stay with their priority decisions. They know that they have no choice but to do first things first—and second things not at all. The alternative is to get nothing done. 5. Effective executives, finally, make effective decisions. They know that this is, above all, a matter of system—of the right steps in the right sequence. They know t...

Something I need to work on: Identify and exploit the strengths of coworkers, supervisors, and management

1. Effective executives know where their time goes. They work systematically at managing the little of their time that can be brought under their control. 2. 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 of me?” rather than with the work to be done, let alone with its techniques and tools. 3. 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. They do not start out with the things they cannot do. 4. Effective executives concentrate on the few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results. They force themselves to set priorities and stay with their priority decisions. They know that they have no choice but to do first things first—and second things not at all. The alternative is to get nothing done. 5. Effective executives, finally, make effective decisions. They know that this is, above all, a matter of system—of the right steps in the right sequence. They know t...

Another possible alternative is to get a lot of the WRONG things done. Generate true but useless information, steer whole project teams in useless directions, chewing up thousands of dollars and man-hours in the process.

1. Effective executives know where their time goes. They work systematically at managing the little of their time that can be brought under their control. 2. 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 of me?” rather than with the work to be done, let alone with its techniques and tools. 3. 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. They do not start out with the things they cannot do. 4. Effective executives concentrate on the few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results. They force themselves to set priorities and stay with their priority decisions. They know that they have no choice but to do first things first—and second things not at all. The alternative is to get nothing done. 5. Effective executives, finally, make effective decisions. They know that this is, above all, a matter of system—of the right steps in the right sequence. They know t...

Requisite variety is essential. There are different schools of thought on *how* it is to be obtained (ex. Western vs. Japanese), but that's secondary. Ccomplexity demands widespread participation in problem solving, knowing that the best solution often arises at the juncture/interaction of separate ideas.

To be effective, every knowledge worker, and especially every executive, therefore needs to be able to dispose of time in fairly large chunks. To have small dribs and drabs of time at his disposal will not be sufficient even if the total is an impressive number of hours.

Several pieces support this: 1. Cleese creativity video: Need about 90 minute chunks of time; the first 30 minutes or so are spent settling down and idly playing with the problem; don't expect results. Sometimes nothing happens (not even a sausage); Don't stop after the first "good" answer you come up with. 2. Agile/psychology/etc.: Rapid task-switching is a sure-fire way to burn up time and energy but produce very little. There are definite, measurable penalties to be paid for task switching. 3. Maybe this is why 80% of Tim Ferriss podcast interviewees practice some form of meditation. It gets you conditioned to just sit with things, concentrate, and ride them out. Catch your mind wandering, which is really a form of task switching/self-distraction. Gently but firmly pulling your attention back to where you want it to be, but without any self-judgement etc. See also essay on "maker vs manager" schedule. Large chunks of time (maker) vs 0.5–1 h slots (manager).

Since the knowledge worker directs himself, he must understand what achievement is expected of him and why. 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 things that take time. And contrary to common belief, this time demand is made not only on his superior but equally on his colleagues. The knowledge worker must be focused on the results and performance goals of the entire organization to have any results and performance at all. This means that he has to set aside time to direct his vision from his work to results, and from his specialty to the outside in which alone performance lies.

But when they sat down for a quiet evening where they could give three or four hours uninterruptedly to the problem, the “obvious” solution finally emerged.

Similar to Japanese practice of retreats, communal bathing, etc. Nonaka.

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.

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.

One of the most effective executives in Professor Sune Carlson’s study, mentioned above, spent ninety minutes each morning before going to work in a study without telephone at home. Even if this means working very early so as to get to the office on time, it is preferable to the most popular way of getting to the important work: taking it home in the evening and spending three hours after dinner on it. By that time, most executives are too tired to do a good job. Certainly those of middle age or older are better off going to bed earlier and getting up earlier. And the reason why working home nights is so popular is actually its worst feature: It enables an executive to avoid tackling his time and its management during the day.

Jocko-: Up before the enemy

The effective executive focuses on contribution. He looks up from his work and outward toward goals. He asks: “What can I contribute that will significantly affect the performance and the results of the institution I serve?” His stress is on responsibility. The focus on contribution is the key to effectiveness: in a man’s own work—its content, its level, its standards, and its impacts; in his relations with others—his superiors his associates, his subordinates; in his use of the tools of the executive such as meetings or reports.

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.

Extreme Ownership

“Contribution,” as the two illustrations just given show, may mean different things. 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 deprived of performance in any one of these areas, it will decay and die. All three therefore have to be built into the contribution of every executive. But their relative importance varies greatly with the personality and the position of the executive as well as with the needs of the organization.

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

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

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.

Effective executives find themselves asking other people in the organization, their superiors, their subordinates, but above all, their colleagues in other areas: “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 only meaningful definition of a “generalist” is a specialist who can relate his own small area to the universe of knowledge.

Executives in an organization do not have good human relations because they have a “talent for people.” They have good human relations because they focus on contribution in their own work and in their relationships with others.

Jocko Jocko Jocko

The typical institution of today has an organization problem for which 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. In terms of formal organization, they will see themselves as “belonging” to a functional specialty—whether this is biochemistry or, as in the hospitals, nursing, for example. In terms of their personnel management—their training, their records, but also their appraisal and promotion—they will be governed by this knowledge-oriented function. But in their work they increasingly have to act as responsible members of a team with people from entirely different knowledge areas, organized around the specific task on hand. Focus on upward contribution will not, by itself, provide the organizational solution. It will, however, contribute understanding of the task and communications to make imperfect organization perform.

3. Individual self-development in large measure depends on the focus on contributions. 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?”

Effective executives know that their subordinates are paid to perform and not to please their superiors. They know that it does not matter how many tantrums a prima donna throws as long as she brings in the customers. The opera manager is paid after all for putting up with the prima donna’s tantrums if that is her way to achieve excellence in performance. It does not matter whether a first-rate teacher or a brilliant scholar is pleasant to the dean or amiable in the faculty meeting. The dean is paid for enabling the first-rate teacher or the first-rate scholar to do his work effectively—and if this involves unpleasantness in the administrative routine, it is still cheap at the price. Effective executives never ask “How does he get along with me?” Their question is “What does he contribute?”

Conversely, don't expect superiors to be "nice guys" (cf. Hackworth).

The really “demanding boss”—and one way or another all makers of men are demanding bosses—always starts out with what a man should be able to do well—and then demands that he really do it.

But there is a subtler reason for insistence on impersonal, objective jobs. It is the only way to provide the organization with the human diversity it needs. It is the only way to tolerate —indeed to encourage—differences in temperament and personality in an organization. To tolerate diversity, relationships must be task-focused rather than personality-focused. Achievement must be measured against objective criteria of contribution and performance. This is possible, however, only if jobs are defined and structured impersonally. Otherwise the accent will be on “Who is right?” rather than on “What is right?” In no time, personnel decisions will be made on “Do I like this fellow?” or “Will he be acceptable?” rather than by asking “Is he the man most likely to do an outstanding job?”

Interesting take on requisite variety

One implication is that the men who build first-class executive teams are not usually close to their immediate colleagues and subordinates. Picking people for what they can do rather than on personal likes or dislikes, they seek performance, not conformance. To insure this outcome, they keep a distance between themselves and their close colleagues. Lincoln, it has often been remarked, only became an effective chief executive after he had changed from close personal relations—for example, with Stanton, his Secretary of War —to aloofness and distance. Franklin D. Roosevelt had no “friend” in the Cabinet—not even Henry Morgenthau, his Secretary of the Treasury, and a close friend on all non-governmental matters. General Marshall and Alfred P. Sloan were similarly remote. These were all warm men, in need of close human relationships, endowed with the gift of making and keeping friends. They knew however that their friendships had to be “off the job.” They knew that whether they liked a man or approved of him was irrelevant, if not a distraction. And by staying aloof they were able to build teams of great diversity but also of strength.

They do not start out with the assumption that jobs are created by nature or by God. They know that they have been designed by highly fallible men. And they are therefore forever on guard against the “impossible” job, the job that simply is not for normal human beings. Such jobs are common. They usually look exceedingly logical on paper. But they cannot be filled. One man of proven performance capacity after the other is tried—and none does well. Six months or a year later, the job has defeated them. Almost always such a job was first created to accommodate an unusual man and tailored to his idiosyncrasies. It usually calls for a mixture of temperaments that is rarely found in one person. Individuals can acquire very divergent kinds of knowledge and highly disparate skills. But they cannot change their temperaments. A job that calls for disparate temperaments becomes an “undoable” job, a man-killer. The rule is simple: Any job that has defeated two or three men in succession, even though each had performed well in his previous assignments, must be assumed unfit for human beings. It must be redesigned.

Think about this in high turnover companies/positions

The effective executive therefore first makes sure that the job is well-designed. And if experience tells him otherwise, he does not hunt for genius to do the impossible. He redesigns the job. He knows that the test of organization is not genius. It is its capacity to make common people achieve uncommon performance.

The second rule for staffing from strength is to make each job demanding and big.

Demanding, big, but *focused*.

This rule applies to the job of the beginning knowledge worker in particular. Whatever his strength it should have a chance to find full play. In his first job the standards are set by which a knowledge worker will guide himself the rest of his career and by which he will measure himself and his contribution. Till he enters the first adult job, the knowledge worker never has had a chance to perform. All one can do in school is to show promise. Performance is possible only in real work, whether in a research lab, in a teaching job, in a business or in a government agency. Both for the beginner in knowledge work and for the rest of the organization, his colleagues and his superiors, the most important thing to find out is what he really can do.

A carpenter’s or a machinist’s job is defined by the craft and varies little from one shop to another. But for the ability of a knowledge worker to contribute in an organization, the values and the goals of the organization are at least as important as his own professional knowledge and skills. A young man who has the right strength for one organization may be a total misfit in another, which from the outside looks just the same. The first job should, therefore, enable him to test both himself and the organization.

Once one has been in an organization for ten years or more, however, it becomes increasingly difficult, especially for those who have not been too effective. The young knowledge worker should, therefore, ask himself early: “Am I in the right work and in the right place for my strengths to tell?” But he cannot ask this question, let alone answer it, if the beginning job is too small, too easy, and designed to offset his lack of experience rather than to bring out what he can do.

I would argue that nowadays (March 2020, Boston pharma/biotech) three years is plenty.

Every survey of young knowledge workers—physicians in the Army Medical Corps, chemists in the research lab, accountants or engineers in the plant, nurses in the hospital—produces the same results. The ones who are enthusiastic and who, in turn, have results to show for their work, are the ones whose abilities are being challenged and used. Those that are deeply frustrated all say, in one way or another: “My abilities are not being put to use.” The young knowledge worker whose job is too small to challenge and test his abilities either leaves or declines rapidly into premature middle-age, soured, cynical, unproductive. Executives everywhere complain that many young men with fire in their bellies turn so soon into burned-out sticks. They have only themselves to blame: They quenched the fire by making the young man’s job too small.

One clue to what is wrong was contained in an advertisement of a new book on management which talked of the appraisal interview as “the most distasteful job” of the superior.

Dirty jobs / kanban It's really up to the job-holder himself to keep track of his accomplishments and how they stack up against the job requirements, overall departmental and corporate goals, etc. The job-holder must demand clear expectations of his superiors just as much as the reverse. How can a manager possibly know everything that a subordinate had accomplished? Sure, the big items are visible, but this doesn't create anything more than a highlight reel or thumbnail sketch of the subordinate. It's incumbent on the subordinate to provide enough detail—organized into themes, stories, or likewise—to enable the manager to get a richer picture of the man under him.

I became aware of this in my first exposure to Japanese management. Running a seminar on executive development, I found to my surprise that none of the Japanese participants —all top men in large organizations—used appraisals. When I asked why not, one of them said: “Your appraisals are concerned only with bringing out a man’s faults and weaknesses. Since we can neither fire a man nor deny him advancement and promotion, this is of no interest to us. On the contrary, the less we know about his weaknesses, the better. 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.

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

Soul in the game (NN Taleb)

The last question (ii) is the only one which is not primarily concerned with strengths. Subordinates, especially bright, young, and ambitious ones, tend to mold themselves after a forceful boss. There is, therefore, nothing more corrupting and more destructive in an organization than a forceful but basically corrupt executive. Such a man might well operate effectively on his own; even within an organization, he might be tolerable if denied all power over others. But in a position of power within an organization, he destroys. Here, therefore, is the one area in which weakness in itself is of importance and relevance. By themselves, character and integrity do not accomplish anything. But their absence faults everything else. Here, therefore, is the one area where weakness is a disqualification by itself rather than a limitation on performance capacity and strength.

Bob Sutton: The No Asshole Rule. High-performing specialist assholes *might* be tolerable if they can't easily be replaced, but they must never, never be given the reins of power. Not even over a single person.

Effective executives rarely suffer from the delusion that two mediocrities achieve as much as one good man. They have learned that, as a rule, two mediocrities achieve even less than one mediocrity—they just get in each other’s way. They accept that abilities must be specific to produce performance. They never talk of a “good man” but always about a man who is “good” for some one task. But in this one task, they search for strength and staff for excellence.

They are above all intolerant of the argument: “I can’t spare this man; I’d be in trouble without him.” They have learned that there are only three explanations for an “indispensable man”: He is actually incompetent and can only survive if carefully shielded from demands; his strength is misused to bolster a weak superior who cannot stand on his own two feet; or his strength is misused to delay tackling a serious problem if not to conceal its existence.

Conversely, it is the duty of the executive to remove ruthlessly anyone—and especially any manager—who consistently fails to perform with high distinction. To let such a man stay on corrupts the others. It is grossly unfair to the whole organization. It is grossly unfair to his subordinates who are deprived by their superior’s inadequacy of opportunities for achievement and recognition. Above all, it is senseless cruelty to the man himself. He knows that he is inadequate whether he admits it to himself or not. Indeed, I have never seen anyone in a job for which he was inadequate who was not slowly being destroyed by the pressure and the strains, and who did not secretly pray for deliverance. That neither the Japanese “lifetime employment” nor the various civil service systems of the West consider proven incompetence ground for removal is a serious weakness—and an unnecessary one.

Finally Marshall knew—and everyone can learn it from him—that every people-decision is a gamble. By basing it on what a man can do, it becomes at least a rational gamble.

How Do I Manage My Boss? Above all, the effective executive tries to make fully productive the strengths of his own superior. I have yet to find a manager, whether in business, in government, or in any other institution, who did not say: “I have no great trouble managing my subordinates. But how do I manage my boss?” It is actually remarkably easy—but only effective executives know that. The secret is that effective executives make the strengths of the boss productive.