“That one can truly manage other people is by no means adequately proven,” Drucker writes. “But one can always manage oneself.” (Location 196)
The ratio of a leader’s performance to those on his or her team remains constant; therefore, if you want the average performance of those around you to go up, you must first improve your own performance. (Location 198)
“To focus on weakness is not only foolish; it is irresponsible,” (Location 203)
you must address deficiencies that directly impede full flowering of your strength. (Location 206)
Some people work well at night; others work better in the morning. Some absorb information best by reading, others by listening. Some thrive in full immersion; others work better in short bursts with variety in the day. Some are project oriented; others are process oriented. Some need vacations; others think the best part about vacations is that they end. Some prefer teams, whereas others produce much greater impact working alone. Per Drucker, we are wired for ways of working in the same way we are right-handed or left-handed. (Location 212)
make your time count. The “secret” of people who do so many difficult things, writes Drucker, is that they do only one thing at a time; they refuse to let themselves be squandered away in “small driblets [that] are no time at all.” (Location 223)
First, create unbroken blocks for individual think time, preferably during the most lucid time of day; these pockets of quietude might be only ninety minutes, but even the busiest executive must do them with regularity. Second, create chunks of deliberately unstructured time for people and the inevitable stuff that comes up. Third, engage in meetings that matter, making particular use of carefully constructed standing meetings that can be the heartbeat of dialogue, debate, and decision; and use some of your think time to prepare and follow up. (Location 226)
Effective people develop a recipe for how to make the most of meetings, and they employ their recipes with consistent discipline. (Location 232)
preparation with a clear purpose in mind (“why are we having this meeting?”) and disciplined follow-up. (Location 234)
if meetings come to dominate your time, then your life is likely being ill-spent. (Location 237)
decision to shift from buying mediocre companies at very cheap prices to buying great earnings machines at good prices—and (Location 246)
What is the one absolutely fundamental contribution that would not happen without you? (Location 255)
To focus on priorities means clearing away the clutter. (Location 258)
If it were a decision today to start something you are already in (to enter a business, to hire a person, to institute a policy, to launch a project, etc.), would you? If not, then why do you persist? (Location 263)
The accomplishments of a single right person in a key seat dwarf the combined accomplishment of dividing the seat among multiple B-players. Get better people, give them really big things to do, enlarge their responsibilities, and let them work. (Location 267)
How can we make society both more productive and more humane? (Location 279)
At one point, I asked him which of his twenty-six books he was most proud of, to which Drucker, then 86, replied: “The next one!” He wrote ten more. (Location 281)
you seem to spend a lot of energy on the question of how to be successful. But that is the wrong question.” He paused, then like the Zen master thwacking the table with a bamboo stick: “The question is: how to be useful!” (Location 285)
That one can truly manage other people is by no means adequately proven. But one can always manage oneself. (Location 296)
Management is largely by example. Executives who do not know how to make themselves effective in their own job and work set the wrong example. (Location 297)
Effectiveness is what executives are being paid for, whether they work as managers who are responsible for the performance of others as well as their own, or as individual professional contributors responsible for their own performance only. Without effectiveness there is no “performance,” no matter how much intelligence and knowledge goes into the work, no matter how many hours it (Location 307)
They asked, “What needs to be done?” • They asked, “What is right for the enterprise?” • They developed action plans. • They took responsibility for decisions. • They took responsibility for communicating. • They were focused on opportunities rather than problems. • They ran productive meetings. • They thought and said “we” rather than “I.” (Location 329)
Knowledge is useless to executives until it has been translated into deeds. (Location 378)
