Working on the right things is what makes knowledge work effective.”, “The greatest wisdom not applied to action and behavior is meaningless data.”, “Knowledge work is not defined by quantity. Indeed, executives who do not manage themselves for effectiveness cannot possibly be expected to manage their associates and subordinates. By themselves, they only set limits to what can be attained.”, “There are few things less pleasing to the Lord, and less productive, than an engineering department that rapidly turns out beautiful blueprints for the wrong product. Remember, effective executives work within organizations, which means that your work is usually only going to lead to results because of how it interacts with the work of others. Your time is your most precious resource, even when you have so little of it. Keep your mornings blocked off for focused work—no meetings, no interruptions. It’s a wonderful, thought-provoking self-help book that’s as relevant and insightful today as it was back in 1966. The effective executive will ask: “Does this man have strength in one major area? Want To Keep Reading? Effective executives concentrate on the few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results. They gear their efforts to results rather than to work. He’s been called the founder of modern management, and his name will inevitably come up anytime talk of business or management arises. There are essentially five such practices—five such habits of the mind that have to be acquired to be an effective executive: 1. One starts with opinions. Effective executives concentrate on the small set of important decisions that need to be made, and they don’t see “decision-making speed” as an asset. They get … Designed by Elegant Themes | Powered by WordPress. Introduction . It’s not possible—or at the very least wildly inefficient—to try to accomplish something complex and important in 5-minute chunks. Something went wrong while submitting the form. Another way of asking this is “What happens if we do nothing?” This is always a possibility, and for many of the less important decisions might be the default best decision. An executive summary is a document that efficiently summarizes a larger business plan while communicating key findings and takeaways from research, as well as proposed courses of action. How much time do you spend working on the single most important thing that you could be doing? You might think about the projects that need to be done. 2. In order to make an effective decision, you need to understand as many aspects of the decision as possible. If you’re a world-class writer and a terrible graphic designer, it simply doesn’t make sense for you to spend time designing images and logos if you could pass those off to a graphic designer on staff. In fact, in a very significant sense, it’s not possible to be a true generalist these days. Information from the outside world is distorted, undervalued, or ignored, which leads to false perspectives about what is important. The executive isn’t usually a lone island generating results on their own; rather, they are part of a team. Also, don’t worry about your title. Part of our Book Summary series where we share notes from our favorite books. Required fields are marked *. An executive may manage people, or they may not—whether or not you manage someone is irrelevant when it comes to being an executive. Here are the eight practices of effective executives that I already listed in The Main Idea section above, but … Drucker’s overall thesis is this: They do not build on weakness. If everyone who you put in a particular position seems to fail, then maybe you’ve designed an impossible (or at least bad) job. (One quick note. And no one has ever failed to find the facts he is looking for. Yet it stands under the law that governs the structure and size of animals and plants: The surface goes up with the square of the radius, but the mass grows with the cube. This sounds eminently plausible. Or you can break out a fancy time tracker app like Toggl if that helps you. (There are quite a lot, actually—the Introduction doesn’t quite read like a normal book introduction.). Drucker says that effectiveness is a habit, or rather a collection of habits and practices. “Development of others” might mean holding webinars and training sessions for anyone in the movement who wants to join. This was, in fact, one of the most important roles of HR. Instead, think and say “We”. 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. Your health and well-being are of course important. Synopsis: “What makes an effective executive? The Effective Executive Summary “Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge are essential resources, but only effectiveness converts them into results.” Peter Drucker is highly regarded as one of the ultimate thought leaders, particularly when it comes to management. Effective executives focus on outward contribution. The Effective Executive is a must-read for anyone making big decisions in their organisations. – They took responsibility for decisions. The effective executive first makes sure that the job is well designed. Often, there is already a solution that someone else has discovered, and all you need to do is recognize the situation as being a generic problem and then seek out the solution. Here are the eight practices of effective executives that I already listed in The Main Idea section above, but I’ll now break them out by category: Convert This Knowledge Into Effective Action, Ensure the Organization Feels Responsible and Accountable, Each of these points is covered in more detail later in the book. Take at least a week or two to do this. What standards do I have to set myself?””, “He always, at the end of his meetings, goes back to the opening statement and relates the final conclusions to the original intent.”, “He knows that one cannot build on weakness. We share thoughts and ideas that can take the movement for animals from x to 10x. Finally they consolidate their “discretionary” time into the largest possible continuing units.”, “People— the third limiting resource— one can hire, though one can rarely hire enough good people. Use clear and direct language throughout. An abstract gives the reader overview and orientation, while an executive summary gives the reader more of a summary. These things aren’t necessarily at odds—it’s probably the case that you do your most effective work when you’re healthy and have high levels of well-being.). For example, if a company performs a competitor analysis prior to deciding whether or not to move in different strategic direction, a business plan would be put together to articulate … You can use any method you like to track your time, but a key point is that is must be tracked as it happens and not from memory later on. It involves adopting a few specific practices and five pivotal habits. Every knowledge worker in modern organization is an “executive” if, by virtue of their position or knowledge, they are responsible for a contribution that materially affects the capacity of the organization to perform and to obtain results…Such a person must make decisions; they cannot just carry out orders. Read more details and reviews for The Effective Executive on Amazon. Maybe it’s hard for you to actually believe someone when they say that they think humans need to eat animals to be healthy, or you vehemently disagree if someone says they’re focused on reducing animal suffering but not eliminating animal farming, and your first reaction is to judge the person or think that they’re being insincere. The point is to track where your time actually goes. Drucker says: “Identify the information you need; ask for it; and keep pushing until you get it.”. This book packs a ton of information into a relatively short space. Read A Longer Form Summary on Blinkist; Buy … An executive summary is a short document that precedes a comprehensive business plan. They never have learned that insights become effectiveness only through hard systematic work. “There is, in other words, no reason why anyone with normal endowment should not acquire competence in any practice. 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.”, “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.”, “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? Money can be earned, saved, spent.