The Effective Executive
The executive is, first of all, expected to get the right things done. (page 1)
Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge are essential resources, but only effectiveness converts them into results. (2)
For manual work, we need only efficiency; that is, the ability to do things right rather than the ability to get the right things done. (2)
Few people of effectiveness were needed : those at the top who gave the orders that others carried out. (2)
The major problem of organization was efficiency in the performance of the manual worker who did what he had been told to do. (3)
Working on the right things is what makes knowledge work effective. (4)
Every knowledge worker in modern organization is an executive if, by virtue of his position or knowledge, he is resposible for a contribution that materially affects the capacity of the organization to perform and to obtain results. (5)
Knowledge work is defined by its results. (7)
I have called executives those knowledge workers, managers, or individual professionals who are expected by virtue of their position or their knowledge to make decisions in the normal course of their work that have significant impact on the normal course of their work that have significant impact on the performance and results of the whole. (8)
The truly important events on the outside are not the trends. They are changes in the trends. (17)
Increasing effectiveness may well be the only area where we can hope significantly to raise the level of executive persormance, achievement, and satisfaction. (18)
Practices one learns by practicing and practicing and practicing again. (23)
There is no reason why anyone with normal endowment should not acquire competence in any practice. (23)
Effective executives know where their time goes. (23)
Effective executives focus on outward contribution. (24)
Effective executives build on strengths. (24)
Effective executives concentrate on the few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results. (24)
Effective executives make effective decisions, the right steps in the right sequence. (24)
Effective executives do not start with their tasks. They start with their time. (25)
They do not start out with planning. They start by finding out where their time actually goes. Then they attempt to manage their time and to cut back unproductive demands on their time. (25)
Three-step process : recording time, managing time, and consolidating time. (25)
The effective executive therefore knows that to manage his time, he first has to know where it actually goes. (27)
In every executive job, a large part of the time must therefore be wasted on things which, though they apparently have bo be done, contribute nothing or little. (28)
People are time-consumers. And most people are time-wasters. (29)
The knowledge worker must be focused on the results ans performance goals of the entire organization to have any results and performance at all. (30)
Fast personnel decisions are likely to be wrong decisions. (32)
The first step toward executive effectiveness is therefore to record actual time-use. (35)
The next question is : "Which of the activities on my time log could be done by somebody else just as well, if not better ?" (37)
"What do I do that wastes your time without contributing to your effectiveness ?" (38)
A crisis that recurs a second time is a crisis that must not occur again. (41)
Time-wastes often result from overstaffing. (43)
Another common time-waster is malorganization. Its ymptom is an excess of meetings. (44)
The last major time-waster is malfunction in information. (46)
Time is the scarcest resource, and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed. (51)
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. (52)
The great majority of executives tend to focus downward. They are occupied with efforts rather than with results. (52)
Human excellence can only be achieved in one area, or at the most in very few. (74)
Jobs have to be objective; that is, determined by task rather than by personality. (76)
Il there is any one "secret" of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time. (100)
Few people, I think, can perform with excellence three major tasks simultaneously. There was Mozart, of course. (101)
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. (111)
It is more productive to convert an opportunity into results than to solve a problem - which only restores the equilibrium of yesterday. (112)
What will happen if we do nothing ? (156)
Effectiveness must be learned. (174)