Book Reviews: The Effective Executive
by Peter F. Drucker
To be effective, Drucker writes, is to
do the right thing. This is in contrast
to mere busyness—doing many
unimportant things right. Effectiveness
is a set of habits that can be practiced,
and thus learned. Drucker breaks these
habits into five categories:
 Know Thy
Time |
| Focus on
Contribution |
| Make
Strengths Productive |
| Do First
Things First |
| Make
Effective Decisions |
Drucker begins with time, the
fundamental constraint of the executive.
He recommends keeping a detailed log of
activities, to find out where time is
actually being spent. Once this record
has been established, it is possible to
manage one’s time and to cut back
on unproductive usage. The discretionary
time that results can then be
consolidated into the largest possible
blocks. Drucker argues that only with
these large blocks of time can the
executive tackle the most important tasks
and hope to achieve results:
“All one can think and do in a
short time is to think what one already
knows and to do as one has always
done.”
Within each category, Drucker proposes
concrete practices that advance executive
effectiveness. He illustrates these
practices with examples from his
substantial consulting experience. Some
of these examples seem dated in this
frenzied dot.com era. However, the
dot.com executives may be providing us
with an updated study on the difference
between busyness and effectiveness. As
Drucker points out:
“The people who get nothing done
often work a great deal harder. In the
first place, they underestimate the time
for any one task. They always expect that
everything will go right. Yet, as every
executive knows, nothing ever goes right.
The unexpected always happens—the
unexpected is indeed the only thing one
can confidently expect. And almost never
is it a pleasant surprise.”
This book is a concise source of
concrete ideas that can be immediately
put into practice. For those joining
management from the technical world, this
book is especially helpful—while
you were writing your thesis on
superconducting RF cavities, your peers
were studying Drucker in business school.
If you don’t have a copy, pick one
up at the airport before your next
flight. Odds are you will dog-ear at
least one page from each chapter before
you land.
If you would like to buy this book,
just click on the following link to open
a new window and go directly to The Effective
Executive on Amazon’s
website. FabTime is an Amazon
affiliate.
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