Cassette tape recording for The Effective Executive, by Peter F. Drucker. The tape begins with Bill Corsair’s introduction explaining how Drucker’s insights in the book remain as relevant today as they were when they were written twenty-five years ago. The narrator then begins to summarize Drucker’s book, stating that the job of an executive is to be effective, whether executives work in a business, hospital, government agency, or university. Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge are essential resources, but only effectiveness converts them into results. Formerly, the manual worker predominated in all organizations, but now, the center of gravity in large organizations has shifted to the knowledge worker, who relies on brains rather than brawn or manual skill. The knowledge worker is the only route to remaining competitive for highly-developed capitalist societies. After defining executives as knowledge workers, the narrator emphasizes that knowledge work is not defined by quantity or cost, but by results. Effectiveness can be learned because effectiveness is a habit, and habits can always be learned. There are five practices that have to be acquired in order to be an effective executive. The first is managing time effectively; two, focusing on one’s overall contribution; three, building on one’s strengths and those of superiors, colleagues, and subordinates; four, setting priorities and staying with those decisions; and five, making effective decisions, basing judgments on dissenting opinions rather than on consensus regarding the facts. Effective executives always start with time, and logging the actual use of one’s time is the first step toward using it effectively. One must get rid of time-wasting activities. For contribution, one focuses on contribution by turning away from one’s narrow specialty and toward the performance of the whole. The executive must think in terms of the customer, which is the ultimate reason for the company’s existence. The most common cause of executive failure is inability or unwillingness to change with the demands of a new position. The higher the position an executive holds, the more sensitive the executive must be to the world outside of his organization. Effective executives staff their departments to maximize strengths, rather than minimize weaknesses. Any job that has defeated two or three capable people in succession must be assumed unfit for human beings, and must be redesigned. Effective executives make each job demanding and big, and effective executives start with what a person can do, rather than what the job requires, and work out their own individual appraisal systems. Knowing one’s strength is essential to productivity, and effective executives learn how to multiply the performance capacity of the whole by putting to use whatever successful and productive qualities individuals may have. The more an executive can concentrate, the more productive the executive will be. Past practices that have ceased to be productive need to be abandoned, and prioritizing tasks is essential to effectiveness. Courage dictates the rules for identifying priorities. In making decisions, effective executives do not make many decisions--instead, they concentrate on the important ones. The narrator concludes by stressing that the industrially developed country has a specific economic need to make the knowledge worker productive, which is how the developed country can maintain its high standard of living against the competition of low-wage developing countries. The key to making the knowledge worker productive is the effective executive. Peter F. Drucker is then interviewed through a question-and-answer format, and affirms that The Effective Executive remains his most important book, because it is written directly for the individual, and the one which gives the fastest and greatest immediate improvement. The role of management has not changed much at all since the book was written, he says, but what has changed is that the organization is moving from one where the operation was management heavy to one wherein the operation is management lean, and there is a much greater number of professionals who are not necessarily managers but need the same effective management skills. Increasingly, there are fewer levels of management, but the number of professionals and specialists is going up. Listening to other people is also a key facet of effective management, and the effective executive can make the knowledge worker productive by providing a clear mission for the knowledge worker, understanding that knowledge workers are volunteers, alongside very clear and specific assignments.
Drucker, Peter F. (Peter Ferdinand), 1909-2005 New York University New York University. Graduate School of Business Administration Executives Executives - Training of Effectiveness Manual work Manual workers Knowledge workers Competition Capitalism Capitalists and financiers Knowledge, work & society Habit Time Time management Change Productivity Industrial productivity Development and underdevelopment Developed countries Management Management by objectives Management science Professional employees Professional relationships Mission statements Volunteer Volunteers Corsair, Bill Brains vs. Brawn Maximizing strengths and minimizing weaknesses Prioritizing
Source
Original recording, 1992; Drucker Archives; Box 68
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