Peter F. Drucker
Publisher: New York: HarperBusiness, 1993.
ISBN: 0887306128   

This is a synopsis only.  RESULTS.com recommends you buy the original book.

Efficiency is doing things right.  Effectiveness is doing the right things.

Management is largely by example.  If you cannot manage yourself for effectiveness, you cannot expect to manage others.

Effectiveness can be learned - and it has to be learned - it is not something that comes naturally. There is no such thing as an "effective personality".  Intelligence, knowledge, and hard work are not enough.  Effectiveness requires learning certain practices until they become habits.

The external environment is beyond the control of the executive.  The truly important events on the outside are not the just the trends, rather they are the changes in the trends.  Changes in trends and how you respond to them will determine your success or failure.  The most common cause of executive failure is the inability or unwillingness to change to respond to new trends.

Increasing effectiveness may be the only area where we can hope to significantly raise performance.

There is no such thing as an ideal leader.  Effective executives differ widely in their temperaments and abilities: Some are extroverts - others are introverts, some are eccentric - others are conformists, some are drinkers - others abstainers, some have charm - others do not, some are educated - others are not, some rely on logic - others rely on intuition, some are generous - others are selfish etc.

The only thing great leaders have in common is the ability to get the right things done.

The 5 practices of effective executives:

1. Carefully manage where and how you spend your time
    
2. Focus on what results need to be achieved - not what work needs to be done nor the techniques and tools involved
    
3. Build on strengths - not weaknesses. Build on your strengths and those of your colleagues. Focus on what you can do - not what you can't do
    
4. Concentrate on the few things that will produce the greatest results.  Force yourself to set priorities.  Do first things first - and second things not at all
    
5. Make decisions by seeking dissenting opinions - not seeking consensus.  Know that to make many decisions and fast decisions means to make the wrong decisions.  Better to make fewer decisions - but make the right fundamental decisions.  Focus on the right strategy rather than razzle dazzle tactics

Know thy time

Time is the scarcest resource - unless it is managed nothing else can be managed.   Keep a time log to record where and how you really do spend your time.  Manage your time by reducing unproductive demands on your time:

• Learn to say no. What would happen if this were not done at all?
• Which of these activities could be better done by someone else?
• What am I doing that wastes other people's time?

Beware accepting too many invitations.  Reduce interruptions.  Reduce the number of meetings and make them more effective (focused on results).  Be aware that the more people are together, the more time is taken by human interactions - and the less time will be available for work and results.

Consolidate chunks of uninterrupted continuous time in your calendar to focus solely on your key priorities.  Little bits of time - 15 minutes here and there spent on a project are not effective.  Even one quarter of the day - if consolidated into a large uninterrupted time unit - is usually enough time for you to get the important things done.   Spending 1 day a week working from home can be an effective way of consolidating time.  Likewise - getting up earlier and using uninterrupted time in the mornings is an effective way of consolidating uninterrupted time.

Ensure you have accurate timely information on hand in a form that people can understand with which to make right decisions. 

Recurring crises must be dealt with by an effective system to prevent the pattern repeating in future.

You can tell a great business by how calm and boring it is.  A dramatic business full of heroic endeavors is invariably poorly managed.

What can I contribute?

Focus on results not effort

• What justifies you being on the payroll?
• What do you contribute?
• What can you and no one else do, that if done well, would make the most important difference to the company?

Every company needs performance in 3 major areas;

• Direct results
• Core values
• Developing people for tomorrow

4 requirements for effective human relations

1. Communication
2. Teamwork
3. Self development
4. The development of others

1. Communication

• What is the best use of your knowledge and ability?
• What contributions should I hold you accountable for?
• What do you need from me in order for you to be able to contribute fully?

2. Teamwork

• Who has to use my output in order for it to become effective?

3. Self development

• What knowledge or skills do I need 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?

4. Development of others

• Set standards for excellence of contribution in all roles  

First things first.

Effective executives do first things first, and second things not at all.  Effective executives do first things first, and they one thing at a time. 

Juggling many balls is a circus stunt.  Concentrate on one thing at a time and keep a steady pace.

Decide in the light of changing events what really matters for you to be doing right now, and commit to doing that one task.  When that task is complete, review the situation, and pick the next one task that now comes first.

Be the master of time and events, instead of their whipping boy.  There are always more things to do than there is time available.  Switch from being busy, to achieving results.   Allow more time than you need. Nothing ever goes as planned.

Abandon yesterday.  Ask - If we did not already do this, would we go into it now?

Do not invest any more resources into no longer productive past activities.  Put your best people to work on the opportunities of tomorrow, not fixing the past.  Prune ruthlessly.  Yesterday's successes always linger long beyond their productive life.  Cut out activities that have ceased to promise future results.

Ask - Is this still worth doing?

Get rid of everything else and focus on the few activities that if done with excellence, will really make a difference.  Get rid of the old activity before you start a new one.  "Organizational weight control" - stay lean and muscular.  Systematically getting rid of the old, is the one and only way to force the new.

Everyone is already too busy working on the tasks of yesterday.  Put all activities and people regularly "on trial for their lives" and get rid of those activities and people that cannot prove their productivity.

Outside the firm is the only area where results occur and is where leaders need to focus their attention.  But pressures always drag you back inside the firm. They drag you into what has happened, over what will happen in the future - the crisis over the opportunity - the urgent over the important. 

Setting priorities is easy.  Setting posteriorities (what to stop doing) is hard and usually unpleasant. It takes courage to:

• Pick the future over the past
• Focus on opportunity, not the problem
• Choose your own direction, rather than follow
• Aim high for something that will make a difference, rather than playing it safe

Achievement is more about courage than ability.

Decision making

Effective executives do not make many decisions.  They concentrate on making a few important ones.

Make the big strategic decisions, rather than try to solve lots of little problems.  The executive who makes many decisions is ineffective. 

Do not make fast decisions.  Make the right decisions that have the biggest impact

The hardest part of any decision is not making it, it is implementing it.  Until a decision has degenerated into hard work, it is not a decision, it is just an intention.

If it is a generic or recurring situation – one needs to create a rule or policy for dealing with it when it recurs.   If it is a unique situation, look for the true problem beneath the symptom.  The symptom clamors for attention, but you need to look at it from the highest possible conceptual level.

Be clear about what it is that you want to accomplish before you make a decision.  What are the boundary conditions that need to be satisfied? 

Focus on what is right, rather than who is right. 

Do not ask, “What is acceptable?”  You will always need to compromise in the end, so don’t start with compromising until you specify what is right first.  Do not worry about what is acceptable.  Many things you worry about never happen.

A decision is not made until action commitments are put in place that becomes someone’s work assignment.  Until then there are only good intentions.

• Who has to know of this decision?
• What action has to be taken? 
• Who is to carry it out? 
• What does the action have to be so that people CAN actually carry it out?

This last question is very important when you want to change people’s behaviours.  Responsibility for the action must be clearly assigned, and the person needs to be capable of carrying it out.

Standards and measures for accomplishment, and incentives need to be changed simultaneously or the person will be caught in a paralyzing conflict.  People do what they are rewarded for.

Build feedback into the decision to test to see how it fares against actual events.  Even the best decision has a high probability of being wrong.  Even the most effective decision eventually becomes obsolete.

Generals learned long ago that they need to “go see” whether their orders have been carried out.  Reports are not enough.  Never rely on what one is told by subordinates.  To see for oneself is the only reliable feedback.

All assumptions become obsolete sooner or later.  Reality does not stand still for long.  Check to see if the assumptions on which a decision was made are still valid, or whether the decision needs to be thought through again.

Failure to ‘go see’ is the typical reason for persisting in a course of action long after it has ceased to be appropriate.  Yes one needs reports and figures.  But make sure you expose yourself directly to the reality

Effective Decisions

A decision is a judgment.  It is rarely a choice between right and wrong.  It is more a choice between different courses of action.

Most books on decision making say to start with the facts, and get consensus on the facts.  This is incorrect.  Effective decisions grow out of the clash and conflict of different opinions and competing alternatives.   People don’t start with facts.  They start with opinions. There is nothing wrong with this.  If you ask people to start with facts, they usually look for facts to fit the opinion they already have.

The effective executive encourages opinions, but insists that people who voice them support them with an appropriate measurement that will assess their effectiveness. 

Effective executives create dissension and disagreement rather than promote consensus.  The first rule of decision making is - Do not make a decision unless there is disagreement first.   If everyone agrees at the outset, tell them to go away and come back with some counter viewpoints.  The right decision requires adequate disagreement first. 

Disagreement helps generate fallback alternatives.  Disagreement stimulates the imagination.

The effective decision maker does not start out assuming they know the right course of action, and that all others must be wrong. They start by stimulating disagreement and alternative opinions.  Start by wanting to understand all the alternatives, not by thinking what is right or wrong, or who is right or wrong.  Most executives are ineffective because they start by thinking that their opinion is the only way

No matter how high emotions run, no matter how much you think the other person is wrong, the effective executive forces themselves to welcome opposition as a means to better think through the alternatives

One final question to ask: Is a decision really necessary?  What will happen if we do nothing? 

Like a surgeon you need to weigh the benefits of surgery with the costs.  Act or do not act; but do not hedge or compromise.  The surgeon does not take out half the tonsils.  You either operate or you don’t.  Do not take half actions.

Do not focus on popularity.  Decisions require courage as much as good judgment.  The most effective medicine usually tastes terrible, but it is the right thing to take.  Effective executives are not paid to do things they like to do.  They are paid to make effective decisions and get the right things done.

Computers

Do not let computers make decisions for you.  It does what its logic is programmed to do.  This makes it fast and precise.  It also makes the computer a moron, for logic is essentially stupid.

Humans are not logical.  They are perceptual.  They are slow and sloppy, but they also have insights and inferences that no computer can have.

Computers can free executives from dealing with routine, generic events inside the organization so they can focus on the strategic outside, which is the only area where results lie.