Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

Reviews of the books I have read (or listened to if was an audio book), as I move to complete my Personal MBA.

The Effective Executive – Book Review

As I mentioned earlier, I wasn’t sure about The Effective Executive when I first saw it. The copy I got was an old used copy, yellow, and well read (yes that should have been a good clue). But that got me thinking about the book, and if it was good – then it would be good for a long time, not just a few days.

Drucker writes about several key elements which he found that makes knowledge workers, not just executives, effective. Knowing that each situation is unique, and the problems that an executive are going to face, will be different, he has to speak in some generalities – however, it does give a good clue as to what is possible, if you are willing to look at your own situation in more detail. He spends a lot of time talking about us figuring out what is truly important, so we focus most of our efforts there. He gives examples of how sometimes we have to look beyond what “normal” people or business practices say – to make that truly effective decision.

In order to do this, Druker writes about effectiveness in several areas for example:

• Know where your time goes – I’ve found a lot of wastefulness in my own schedule – which when removed, as allowed me to spend more time with family, projects, and work that needed to get done. Here’s a hint – if you don’t write it down, you only think you know where your time goes. Treat it like a budget – and be ready to be surprised.
• Determine what is truly important – so you can outsource, delegate, or even ignore, the unimportant aspects of our lives, that serve nothing but to drain time from our schedules
• Makes decisions based upon facts and dissenting opinions - don’t surround yourself with hearsay or yes men.
• Concentrates on one important task – don’t let yourself be pulled in too many directions
• Focus on the results of your projects and people – realize that the people don’t have to be perfect in all areas, but they need to be as close to it as possible for the job you assign them.
• And finally, because you focus on results, or in order to focus on results, staff based upon people’s strengths, and grow them, minimizing their weakness.

It’s a good book to read, even if you are not going through the Personal MBA yourself, as there is a lot of good information.