“It is more productive to convert an opportunity into results than to solve a problem – which only restores the equilibrium of yesterday.”
In earlier posts in this series on Peter Drucker’s book The Effective Executive: the definitive guide to getting the right things done, we reviewed his list of basic practices:
Effective managers:
- “….know where their time goes.”
- “….focus on outward contribution”
- “….build on strengths….”
- “….concentrate on the few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results.”
- “…. make effective decisions.”
This posting is devoted to the fourth practice, concentrate where it counts. ((All quotes in this posting come from pages 100-112 in Peter Drucker The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done. Revised. Collins Business, 2006.))
If there is any one “secret” of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time. ((Note that decades before the controversies over so-called “multi-tasking” Drucker notes the singular importance that people can only effectively do one task at a time. I have written about this earlier in “Multitasking, Too Much Information, Interruptions, and High Performance” )) Continue reading