An excellent book by Peter Drucker. He gets here the essence of what management should be and the actual role of executives in organization. That is to orient the resources available toward their productive usage. Many parts of the book can be extended to a more general conception of productivity or effectiveness than simply the big corporation and interesting conclusions can be drawn to personal productivity or family management for example. From time management to the effective way of taking decisions, all the key concepts are here and illustrated by highlights of the first half of the twentieth century history, be it from business or military worlds. ( )

A very practical read that remains relevant, despite being written in 1966. Drucker premises the book about maximizing the effectiveness (getting the right things done) of a new class of 'knowledge workers' -- what strikes me as particularly relevant is the these lessons can be applied beyond the stereotypical white collar office worker, particularly in service and light manufacturing.

Today, I don't think there is as clear of a dichotomy as Drucker proposes. All workers would benefit from:
-Reducing the non-value add work that wastes their time and energy (Know Thy Time)
-Focusing their efforts on high-contribution initiatives (What Can I Contribute?)
-Having jobs that are designed to be demanding and big, so as to be engaged to grow personally and professionally (Making Strength Productive)
-Communicate what parts of their role could be abandoned or de-prioritized (First Things First)

The book can lose your attention a bit in written form, so I particularly enjoyed the free audiobook version available as a podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy8xMjI1ZDRkMC9wb2RjYXN... ( )

Even though this book was published in 1967, it still has very good insights for executives because despite all the technological progress core tasks and values didn't change that much since then.

This quote from the book, in my opinion, is main [a:Peter F. Drucker|12008|Peter F. Drucker|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1318472244p2/12008.jpg]'s point:

Effectiveness, in other words, is a habit; that is, a complex of practices. And practices can always be learned.

To sum up, what good executives need:

They need to know where the time goes because time supply is not elastic.

Nothing else, perhaps, distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time.

Logging time is the solution in this case.

Make sure to focus on the results, not the efforts.
During meetings make sure to specify the purpose of the meeting and expected output.

Build on people strengths, not weaknesses (because everybody has some)
Do first things first and do it one at a time.
Always bring in new people because organisation always need fresh input and outsider's look.

Do not cure the symptoms of problem, instead cure the root of it and go for few important ones instead of many average issues.

Executive must ask himself: What will happen if we do nothing?
Good people emerge from good organisation and vice versa.

Do not make an important decision unless there is a disagreement:
- It helps from being shifted to one side for someone's favor
- It provides with alternatives for decision
- It stimulates the imagination ( )

This is of course a classic of Management literature. Even though some ideas and concepts are becoming obsolete, I recommend reading this book, if you want to understand the purpose and principle of managing effectively as well as the difference to doing it efficiently. ( )

This one's sure dated. Drucker writes clean, assertive prose. The book is very quotable and also full of useful info, but so much of it references case studies from 50 - 100 years ago that it's hard today to feel like I'm able to extract as much meaning out of the case studies as somebody might have in 1966. I'm simultaneously reading The Daily Drucker and for the moment am inclined to think that reading a summary of the high points of The Effective Executive book and maybe thumbing through a copy of The Daily Drucker would be a useful exercise for most anybody in a lead or management role. I'm not sure I'd recommend a full read of The Effective Executive for most, though.

(Side note -- the more I read this book, the more, for some reason, I had trouble not hearing it in my head in the voice of Droop Dog.)

I've written a slightly more comprehensive review here. ( )