The Effective Executive by Peter F. Drucker Executive book summary by Junyin Ding for EADM 826 INTRODUCTION CONTENTS Unlike other books that focus on how to manage 1. Effectiveness Can Be Learned others, this book focuses on how to manage yourself to be a productive manager. And the book's discussion is based on two premises: that managers 2. Know Thy Time must be effective and that being effectiveness can be learned. 3. What Can I Contribute? To be effective under this premise, the authors believe five steps are needed. The first step is to keep track of how time is spent. The second step is for 4. Making Strength Productive managers to focus their attention on contributions. The third step is to make the most of people's strengths. The fourth step is to prioritize what is 5. First Things First important and focus on time. The fifth step is to focus on reasonable actions. 6. The Elements of Decision-making 7. Effective Discussion ABOUT THE AUTHOR Peter Drucker, the founder of the management discipline, is revered as a master among masters and the father of modern management. The spread of his ideas influenced more than 130 countries and he called himself a social ecologist. His influence on sociology and economics was profound. He has written extensively, including dozens of books such as The Practice of Management, The Effective Executive, and Management: Mission, Responsibility, Practice. The Practice of Management has established him as the founder of the management discipline, while The Effective Executive has become a must-read classic for managers worldwide. Chapter 1 Effectiveness Can Be Learned WHY WE NEED EFFECTIVE EXECUTIVES Therefore, we cannot judge whether a knowledge This is because effectiveness is a special skill for worker is a manager or not based on whether he or knowledge workers, and knowledge workers have she has subordinates. only recently increased. For manual work, it is efficiency, the ability to do things right rather than The term executive refers to knowledge workers, to get the right things done, that is valued. managers and professionals in general. By virtue of their knowledge and position, they have to make Today, many organizations are shifting their focus decisions in their work that affect overall to knowledge workers, so the effectiveness of their performance and results. However, this does not work becomes important. mean that most knowledge workers are managers because knowledge work is like any other job, some Moreover, the motivation of the knowledge worker of which is of a routine nature and does not require depends on his or her effectiveness and on whether much skill. or not he or she is making a difference at work. EXECUTIVE REALITIES WHO IS AN EXECUTIVE? The reality that executive face: they are required to be effective, but on the other hand, it is difficult for In a modern organization, a knowledge worker is an them to be effective. executive if he or she is able to combine his or her position and knowledge with the responsibility to The reality of the challenges faced by executive contribute to the organization, thus substantially within an organization that are beyond their control: influencing the organization's ability to operate and the results it achieves. 1. Executives' time belongs to others, not to themselves. Such an executive cannot be satisfied with merely They are prisoners of the organization. Even the most impassioned and efficient executives find that the vast carrying out orders; he must be able to make majority of their time is taken up, and that the time spent decisions and take responsibility for making talking is often unproductive. contributions. He or she should have the ability to make sound decisions better than anyone else, given 2. Executives are often forced to be busy with day-to-day his or her knowledge. operations unless they have the courage to act to change everything around them. It is not always clear what is important. The Executives needs a set of criteria to enable Many people are simply superiors, or even superiors him to work on what is really important. of many people, but their actions do not have a significant impact on the organization's ability to operate. Chapter 1 Effectiveness Can Be Learned 3. The executives themselves are in an organization. The There are five habits of mind that must be executive is only effective if others can take advantage developed in order to be an effective manager: of his or her contribution. The most important people for the executive's effectiveness are often not the people under the executive 's direct control, but people in other departments, or the executive's own boss. 1. Effective executives know what they are spending their time on. 4. Executives are within an organization. Managers cannot 2. Effective executives value their experience the changes in the outside world, but only learn about the outside world through information contribution to the outside world, and they reports, which are filtered in advance by the don't work for the sake of the job, they organization. work for results. 3. Effective executives are good at leveraging strengths, including their own, THE PROMISE OF their supervisor's, their colleagues' and EFFECTIVENESS their subordinates' strengths. They are good at seizing advantageous situations If someone has a skill in an important area, let him and doing what they want to do. make full use of it. But it is not true that one does 4. Effective executives concentrate on a not even need to acquire some basic knowledge in small number of important areas in which various fields. excellent performance can produce excellent results. They set the order according to the priority of their work. 5. An effective executive must be good at CAN EFFECTIVENESS BE LEARNT making effective decisions. An effective decision is always a judgment based on a Effectiveness is an acquired habit, a synthesis of discussion of different opinions. It is never practice. Therefore, it can be learned. And the product of unanimity. Quick decisions effectiveness is twofold: are mostly wrong decisions, and the number of truly inaccessible decisions is small, but they must be fundamental. What is needed, therefore, is the right decision, 1. To be a management consultant is to be a think tank, without any power, but the management consultant must not a dizzying array of tactics. be effective, otherwise nothing will be achieved. 2. The most effective management consultants also rely on the cooperation of people within the commissioning organization to get the job done Chapter 2 Know Thy Time The rarest resource of all is time. Effective Systematic time management: executives tend to start with their time schedule. First recognize where you spend your time, then 1. Find out what doesn't have to be done manage your time to reduce the amount of time 2. What activities on the time record can be taken up by unproductive tasks. Finally, focus the attended by someone else without compromising broken usable time into chunks of continuity. results? 3. Executives need to avoid wasting other people's time THE TIME DEMANDS ON THE EXECUTIVE PRUNING THE TIME-WASTERS Executives are often under various pressures that force them to spend some time on unproductive and 1. Identify factors that lead to wasted time due to time-wasting tasks. But most of a manager's tasks lack of systems or vision. require large blocks of time. In fact, to be effective, 2. Overstaffing also often results in wasted time. knowledge work, especially for managers, must be 3. Poor organization, manifested by too many able to use blocks of time in a holistic manner. meetings, also results in wasted time. Meetings are a remedy for organizational deficiencies, and The needs of the organization itself, the need to deal you can't work when you have meetings. with personnel issues, and the need for innovation 4. A final factor that wastes time is poorly and change have made it imperative for executives functioning information or the way in which it is to address the management of time. And in order to presented. manage time, you first need to understand how you use it. CONSOLIDATING “DISCRETIONARY TIME” TIME-DIAGNOSIS After executives have done their own time logging and To understand how time is spent, you need to record analysis, they need to understand how much time is freely it first. Dare to cut down on meaningless work. available and how much of it can be spent on things that contribute. The first step is to keep track of actual time use. The second step is to do systematic time management. The control and management of time cannot be done once and for all; time records and analysis must be done on an ongoing basis. Chapter 3 What Can I Contribute Managers must value contribution and know how to The demand for effectiveness in general institutions align their work with long-term goals. is often expressed in three areas: Valuing contribution is the key to effectiveness. 1. Direct results Effectiveness is manifested in three areas: 2. The creation of new values and the reaffirmation of those values 3. The nurturing and development of the talent 1. Own work, including content, level of work and needed for tomorrow its impact 2. Their relationships with others, including their Common reasons for managerial failure: the person's superiors, colleagues and subordinates. inability or unwillingness to change to accommodate 3. The use of various management tools, such as the needs of a new position when taking on a new meetings or reports. position. Most managers value hard work but neglect results.