Week 9 of 52. Welcome to Drucker Mondays, a 52-week journey through the new book, A Year with Peter Drucker: 52 Weeks of Coaching for Leadership Effectiveness, by Joseph A. Maciariello. Each Monday, we'll feature a Drucker fan and his or her favorite snippet from the week's topic. (Subscribe on this page.) Jim Canning is our guest writer today.
Week 9: Organize Work for Effectiveness
THE BIG IDEA FROM THE BOOK: In this four-part segment on “The Road Map to Personal Effectiveness,” Week 9 addresses the importance of organizing our work to enhance effectiveness.
JIM CANNING’S FAVORITE DRUCKER INSIGHTS from Week 9, pages 65-70:
• Effective executives know that time is the “limiting factor” in effectiveness. Therefore, we should attempt to plan our time making sure that the most important things are done first.
• If we want to accept a new or unexpected opportunity, we will generally have to decide to abandon or delegate something else.
JIM CANNING’S COLOR COMMENTARY:
One of the most important things that everyone must decide each day is how best to use their time. The better you manage your time, the more effective you will be. Organizing our work helps us determine how best to use our time.
One helpful tool: Each evening prepare a list of what you need to do the next day—in order of importance—so when you wake up the next morning, you have a general plan and can get off to a good start.
Remember the old saying, “Well begun is half done.”
THIS WEEK’S QUOTES & COMMENTARY BY JIM CANNING:
Jim Canning, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in Executive Management from the Peter Drucker School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. While there, he was a student of both Peter Drucker and Joseph Maciariello, the author of A Year With Peter Drucker. For many years Jim served as V.P./Chief Financial Officer of World Vision International. He now lives in Spokane, Wash.
TO-DO TODAY:
• “Andy Grove, who was a very effective CEO of a large public company, explained that he set his priorities by putting pressure on his time. As new opportunities arose that required his time, he identified other activities that he should either abandon or delegate to others."
• “Would ‘putting pressure on your time’ work for you?”
NEXT MONDAY:
On March 9, 2015, we’ll be we’ll be three-quarters of the way into this four-week segment on “The Road Map to Personal Effectiveness.” Week 10’s topic is “Information Literacy for Effective Executives.” Here’s an insight: “Major changes always start outside an organization.”
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