Thinking books · Leadership & character · Peter Drucker, 1967
The Effective Executive — the big ideas
On effectiveness as a learnable practice rather than a personality.
Free — no account needed to read
The big ideas
Know where your time actually goes — record it rather than estimate it, because the estimate is always wrong in a flattering direction.
Focus on contribution: what results are expected of you, as opposed to what effort you are putting in.
Build on strengths — yours, your colleagues’, your boss’s — rather than trying to remedy weaknesses into mediocrity.
First things first, and second things not at all. Drucker is unusually blunt that the second list does not get done later.
Practise it — no need to have read it
Record where your time actually went for three days, in fifteen-minute blocks. Compare with where you thought it went.
A hint: The gap is the finding. Nobody estimates this correctly.
Where it shows up in real life
- Prioritisation
- Delegation
- Deciding what to stop
Described in our own words with the source named — never quoted, and not a substitute for reading the book.
The thinking it builds
- Strategic Thinking — Think beyond the immediate next step
- Reflective Thinking — Examine your own reasoning