Three Lessons from The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker

As any review will tell you, this thin book is one dense lesson. Peter Drucker’s The Effective Executive is already so widely praised that I will simply add that it lives up to the hype. While the ideas contained in the book are all timeless, I wanted to take the time to cover three that really struck me:

Focus on What You, and Only You, Can Contribute

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.

Focus on the bigger picture. Don’t just work on your projects, look for ways that they can help improve the entire organization.

First Things First

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.

We rightly consider keeping many balls in the air a circus stunt. Yet even the juggler does it only for ten minutes or so. If he were to try doing it longer, he would soon drop all the balls.

We’re starting to figure out that “multi-tasking” is impossible. All we really do is to spread ourselves too thinly across a few tasks. Drucker knew it back in 1966.

Great Ideas Are Nice, but Execution is What Matters

Unless a decision has “degenerated into work” it is not a decision; it is at best a good intention. This means that, while the effective decision itself is based on the highest level of conceptual understanding, the action to carry it out should be as close as possible to the working level and as simple as possible.

Jack Welch, the legendary GE CEO actually worked a lot with Drucker and he summed this up: “In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell.”

Conclusion

Hands down a must-read for anyone who wants to do a better at their job and everything else they want to do.

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