The 5 Practices of Effective Executives

I’m reading (or re-reading) a small book by Peter Drucker called The Effective Executive.  It was published in 1966.  The edition I have is from 1987.  It must have been deemed worthy of some further ink and paper when it was 11 years old, but how does it hold up in 2016?

Drucker was researching and writing on executives and organizations at a time when the concept of the modern executive was new.  He coined the phrase ‘Knowledge Worker’ in 1957.  This was a new generation of organizations and executives.  These organizations moved beyond the previous generation of work which was direct manual laborers and overseers to make sure the work got done.

Emerging after WWII was a class of workers he called ‘knowledge workers’ who leveraged their knowledge, not their manual dexterity, to add value.  Leading or managing these organizations were a new breed of executive and they needed a new paradigm.

Drucker made the point that it was no longer good enough to be efficient, which was how the manual laborers were measured.  These new executives would have to do something that they had no experience in.  They had to focus on being effective.

Whys is it so hard for executives to be effective?  This is what Drucker said in 1966.

1. Their time is not their own. They are constantly at the mercy of interruption by employees, customers and other stakeholders.

Sound familiar?  How much of an effectiveness today is based on being able to escape the tyranny of everyone else’s expectations and needs?  Not only is this still relevant in 2016, it’s worse.  With the new forms of instantaneous communication and 24 X 7 global availability today’s executive needs to have very good systems and constructs of support to get anything effective done.

2. Executives are pulled to be more ‘operational’ than they should be.

It is still a challenge in 2016. How many times have you seen the technical executive not be able to leave their comfort zone when their role is expanded?  Especially when the reason they got promoted was how well they executed at the engineering or the process execution level.   There is always some crisis that they can comfortably throw themselves into and solve, but they shouldn’t.   Being operationally effective is probably someone else’s job.

3. They are within an organization.

The executive can only be successful, can only be effective, can only influence through the leverage of the organization.  Individuals don’t’ scale well.  Organizations are that leverage to scale the executive’s effectiveness.

I would say that is entirely true in 2016.  The individual contributor needs to learn to leverage the team.

4. They are within an organization.

Drucker warned in 1966 that the executive is surrounded by their organization.  They see it very well.  They only see the world outside the organization through the thick, distorting haze of the organization.

Still relevant in 2016?  Probably not as much of a general risk.  The mobility of the 2016 workforce keeps lateral ideas flowing in industry.  The speed and transparency of communication lets the outside world more clearly into the office of the 2016 executive.  But, there still are companies, and executive organizations that turn in on themselves to lose their effectiveness.

In modern terms, you can tell when the leadership of a company starts believing their own B.S. Those tend to fail rapidly and sometimes spectacularly in their hubris.

If you dropped “The Effective Executive” in a time machine in 1966 and zapped it 60 year’s forward would it still make sense?  Would it still be effective in instructing today’s leadership?

Apart from some obvious anachronisms I think it would.  Efficiency is still the driving force is so many organizations.  “How can we get more done?” may not be the right question.  “How do we get the right stuff done?” is often overlooked.  If you don’t focus on being effective all you do is create a cloud of dust and no forward movement.

This brings us back to the executive.  What kind of person does this job require?

The myth is that the executive needs to be some sort of super leader who has amazing attributes.  The myth is that they are ‘born’ great executives.  That is our nature; to put the high performers on a pedestal because they have some sort of super power.  Don’t get me started on the current super hero fetish!

The truth is that effective executives are not born, they are made.  And in many cases, they are made from barely competent women and men like you and me.  Can anyone guess how Drucker said the average Joe and Jill could be made into an effective executive in 1966?

I’ll wait.

Practice.  How often do I talk to you about practice?  The best concepts are timeless.  The way effective executives are made is the same way an effective anything is made – through practice  Effective executives practice the right things every day.

But, “Chris”, you say, “What do they practice to become effective?” Drucker says that there are 5 things.  (An interesting side note is that current internet article headlines always have 5 or 7 things because that’s the number that scores the most clicks. Drucker was ahead of his time – this could have been a great blog post of “5 things effective executives do well!”)

The 5 areas of practice that make an effective executive are:

1. Effective executives know where their time goes.

This seems so simple, but it is as universally true today as it was 60 years ago.  The only thing we can’t get more of is time.  Still true.  Most people have no idea how to manage their time for effectiveness.

2. Effective executives focus on outward execution.

This is universally true as well today as it was then.  It’s not about you.  It’s about how you influence the world around you that makes you effective.

3. Effective executives build on strengths.

Halleluiah!  We spend so much time trying to ‘fix’ our short comings and the shortcomings of those around us we fail to leverage the gifts we’ve been given.

4. Effective executives focus on a few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results (leverage).

Quadrant 4 activities anyone?  I wonder how much Stephen Covey was influenced by this work?  Find the important things to work on and work on them in big chunks.

5. Effective executives make effective decisions. (Have rigorous decision making process).

This may be a bit anachronistic to a time when the executives were more patriarchal and they were relied on for ‘big’ King Solomon type decisions, but the decision-making process is still key.  One of the things I had to teach myself when I first led a company was to make decisions and to own those decisions.

To have decision making become a practice you need to have a decision-making process.  This may include gathering information and opinion, making the decision, communicating the decision and then owning that decision through its life cycle.  It’s a process and a practice.

These are the 5 key practices that Drucker identified in 1966.  They may or may not be the most salient 5 for you in your role but they are a starting point.  I can guarantee that if you sit back and examine yourself and your career you should be able to identify some related practices that would make you more effective.

The timeless advice here, the timeless knowledge, and the timeless learning is that regardless of the role you play practice is the key to success.  Whether it’s training for a marathon or managing a company there are certain finite practices that you can cultivate to reap success.