Suggested Reading

by Peter Drucker

There are hundreds of books on the topic of executive effectiveness, but there have been very few things said in the interim that Peter Drucker hadn’t already figured out in the 1960s. What makes an effective executive? The measure of the executive, Drucker reminds us, is the ability to “get the right things done.” This usually involves doing what other people have overlooked as well as avoiding what is unproductive. Drucker identifies five practices essential to business effectiveness that can, and must, be learned: managing time, choosing what to contribute to the organization, knowing where and how to mobilize strength for best effect, setting the right priorities, and tying all of them together with effective decision-making. When you reduce his ideas down, they seem obvious. But it took this teacher of wisdom to combine these insights into a book.