Effectiveness and Efficiency from The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker

Executive Summary by Product CEO

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Transcript

Drucker has met many effective executives. They varied in personalities, but all followed the same eight practices:

1. They asked, “what needs to be done?”
   
2. They asked, “what is right for the enterprise?”
   
3. They developed action plans.
   
4. They took responsibility for decisions.
   
5. They took responsibility for communication.
   
6. They were focused on opportunities rather than problems.
   
7. They ran productive meetings.
   
8. They thought and said “we” rather than “I”.
   

For manual work, we need only efficiency. Efficiency is the ability to do things right.

For executive work, we need effectiveness. Effectiveness is the ability to get the right things done.

Effectiveness can be learned.

There are few things less desirable in business than rapidly producing the wrong product.

Working on the right things is what makes knowledge work effective.

In knowledge work, individual contributors are asked to perform the executive work: make strategic decisions that impact the entire enterprise.

As an effective American infantry captain put it in words, “What they do depends on the situation which only they can judge. The responsibility is always mine, but the decision lies with whoever is on the spot.”