Effective managers-Reading Notes

Effective Manager is a work published by Mr. Peter Drucker in 1966. It mainly describes the increasing proportion of mental workers with the development of the times, how to measure and improve the efficiency of mental workers; on the other hand, as a "manager", how to better manage your own time and how to better provide more results for the organization, how to know people, how to make effective decisions.

This book is very thin and has only over 170 pages, but its content is very full. It cannot be described as a word, including not only the wise theory of Mr. Drucker, it also contains a large number of informative instances, so you can master them as much as possible.

Below I will record some of my ideas in the order of chapters.

1. You can learn the results.
   • The effectiveness of a person is almost unrelated to his intelligence, imagination, or knowledge. Talented people are often the most ineffective. Because they do not realize that talent itself is not a result, a person's talent can only produce benefits through organized and systematic work.
   • For physical workers, we only pay attention to efficiency. efficiency is the ability to do things right, instead of "to get the right things done. The results of physical labor can generally be measured by quantity and quality. However, for "knowledge workers", the results of their work are hard to be measured by quantity and quality.
   • We cannot strictly and meticulously supervise knowledge workers. We can only help them. Knowledge workers themselves must manage themselves, consciously complete their tasks, consciously make contributions, and consciously pursue work efficiency.
   • The motivation of a knowledge worker depends on whether he is effective and whether he can achieve something at work. If his work lacks effectiveness, his enthusiasm for doing a good job and making contributions will soon fade away, and he will become the one who spends nine to five days in the office.
   • Knowledge workers do not produce actually useful products. They do not produce tangible products. They produce knowledge, creativity, and information. They only use another knowledge worker, it is of practical significance to convert his products into another type of output. Great wisdom, if not applied to action, will be meaningless information.
   • Organizations are a tool that can increase the value of personal talents.
   • What is "manager", we have positioned it as: knowledge workers, managers and professionals, because of their positions and knowledge, they must make decisions that affect overall performance and results at work.
   • Whether a knowledge worker is a manager cannot be determined by whether he or she has any subordinates. In every knowledge-based organization, there are always people fighting independently. Although they have no subordinates, they still belong to managers.
   • Every manager needs to be effective on the one hand, but makes it difficult for them to achieve effectiveness.
   • The main constraints faced by managers include: 1) managers often only belong to others rather than themselves; 2) managers are often forced to "daily operations"; 3) managers are in an "Organization". Managers are effective only when others can make use of their contributions. 4) managers are in the "internal" of an organization ", limited by the Organization.
   • There will be no results within the Organization, and all results will exist outside the Organization. An organization cannot be an organ of society for the purpose of its own survival like a creature. It can be regarded as an achievement only after making its own contribution to the external environment.
   • In general, it is easy for us to find a talent that is certainly not a complete talent. Therefore, we can only hire talents that are superior in a certain aspect of ability at best, but are mediocre in other aspects.
   • Today, many young people with higher education have one drawback: they are complacent about being proficient in specialized knowledge in a narrow field.
   • There is no such thing as "effective personality" in the world ". Effective managers and incompetent managers are difficult to differentiate in terms of type, character, and talent.
   • Effectiveness is a habit of the day after tomorrow and a combination of practices.
   • As a very effective manager, you need to have the following five habits: 1) know where the time is spent and control the time well; 2) Pay attention to contributions to the outside world; 3) be good at using the strengths of yourself or others; 4) concentrate on a few important fields; 5) be good at making effective decisions.
2. Master your own time
   • A plan is usually just a conversation on paper, or just a good intention. It is rarely implemented.
   • Time is a limiting factor. The output of any production program will be restricted by the least rare resources, and time is the least rare resource.
   • The supply of time is not elastic and there is no substitute. The biggest difference between effective managers and others is that they cherish their time.
   • People think that the answer is very different from the actual one when they estimate the time they spend doing something or what they spend.
   • As a manager, no matter whether he is a manager or not, there will always be a lot of time spent on the work that has no contribution. In addition, the higher his position in the organization, the greater the organization's time requirements for him.
   • Most of the time spent by every manager is wasted.
   • Most of the manager's tasks also require a considerable amount of time. If the time consumed by each operation is less than this limit, the tasks will not work well and the time spent will be a waste, start from scratch.
   • It takes enough time to communicate effectively with others. If you really want to influence others, it will take at least an hour. If you want to establish good interpersonal relationships with others, it will take more time.
   • Knowledge workers usually require more time for their superiors and colleagues than physical workers. They need information, discussion, and guidance, which is extremely time-consuming.
   • Without a sound and easy communication mechanism, knowledge workers can easily lose their enthusiasm and become people who have lived a long time ago, or focus only on their own professional fields without looking at the needs and opportunities of the entire organization.
   • The more people you work with, the more time it takes for the workers to coordinate with each other. The less time it takes for the workers to work.
   • Personnel Decision-making is a time-consuming decision. The reason is simple. When God created people, he did not think they would need to manage the Organization in the future.
   • Mrs. SLA, Eastern Europe, said: you can use your feet to make it work.
   • How to diagnose your own time: 1) to record the actual time consumption, you must record it immediately at the time when processing a job, instead of memorizing it afterwards; 2) perform systematic time management; 3) centralize the fragmented time that can be controlled by managers.
   • Effectively, managers often record two or three time periods every day for three or four consecutive weeks for self-review.
   • You can use the following methods to manage the system time: 1) You do not need to do anything at all, or you have done nothing; 2) which activities can be attended by others without affecting the effect; 3) Find out the activities that managers are wasting others' time on. For example, if developers do not require everyone to participate, relevant personnel can participate, then, send the meeting records to everyone.
   • People always have a tendency to overestimate the importance of their status and think that many things are not indispensable. Even if they are the most effective managers, there is still a lot of unnecessary and non-productive work.
   • Note that a waste of time is sometimes caused by poor management and institutional defects. You should also pay attention to it as a supervisor.
   • How to check the defects in the Organization: 1) Identify the waste of time factors due to lack of systems or foresight, especially the same "crisis" after and after; 2) too many people often lead to a waste of time; 3) Too many meetings are also a factor in poor organization; 4) incomplete information functions or improper expression of information.
   • A recurring crisis should be foreseeable. If a recurring crisis occurs, it is often caused by negligence and laziness.
   • We should try our best to use routine operations to deal with crisis. The so-called routine operations refer to the tasks that are supposed to be handled by experts and are designed to be handled by everyone without research and judgment.
   • A well-managed company is always monotonous and there are no exciting events.
   • Reasons for meeting: 1) everyone has their own work and must cooperate with each other to complete a specific task; 2) knowledge and experience required for a specific situation, it cannot be all in one's mind, so you need to brainstorm.
   • An organization where everyone can hold meetings at any time must be an organization where no one can do things.
   • Managers must not occupy too many meetings. Too many meetings indicate improper job structure and improper organization settings.
   • The higher a manager is, the more time it cannot control.
   • Time control and management cannot be achieved once and for all, and dynamic adjustment is required constantly.
3. What can I contribute?
   • Most managers focus on diligence, but ignore results.
   • If a person only knows how to work hard and emphasizes his or her permissions, no matter how high his position is, he or she can only be regarded as a "subordinate" of others ".
   • Managers must pay attention to their responsibilities and contributions. Only by attaching importance to contributions can managers focus less on their own expertise, less on their own technology, and less on their own departments, in order to see the overall performance, but also make him pay more attention to the external world, only the external world is the place to produce results.
   • The requirements of general institutions for effectiveness are divided into the following three aspects: 1) direct results; 2) New Value Establishment and re-confirmation of these values; 3) train and develop the talents needed tomorrow.
   • There may be many reasons for a manager's failure, but the common reason should be that he cannot or does not want to change to adapt to the needs of a new position when taking up a new position.
   • As a knowledge worker, you must take into account who outputs are for use, and understand what users should know before they can effectively use their outputs to produce results.
   • In the face of internal staff, you should raise the following question: what contribution do you need to make to facilitate your contribution to the organization? When and in what form do I need to provide these contributions?
   • The so-called "General talent" should also be an expert, an expert who can associate a small field of his subject with other broad knowledge fields.
   • In an organization, managers who think they are talented in management often do not have good interpersonal relationships. Managers who pay more attention to contributions in their work and interpersonal relationships often have good interpersonal relationships, and their work is also fruitful.
   • Effective interpersonal relationships must meet the following requirements: 1) mutual communication; 2) teamwork; 3) self-development; 4) Cultivating others.
   • The higher the automation of information processing, the more opportunities we need to create effective communication.
   • A meeting is a management tool used by a manager every day. The administrator needs to know what can be obtained from the meeting and what the purpose of the meeting is or should be.
   • Attaching Importance to contribution is an organizational principle that enables managers to master the relevance of various jobs. Attaching Importance to contribution means attaching importance to effectiveness.
4. How to leverage people's strengths
   • Giving Full Play to the strengths of people is the only purpose of the Organization. The task of managers is to make full use of the strengths of each person to accomplish tasks in common.
   • The decision-making of managers is not about how to overcome human weaknesses, but about how to exert human strengths.
   • For a person, "Everything is proficient" often means nothing.
   • Effective managers know that they use people to do things, rather than serving them as supervisors.
   • People can use all their resources in an activity or field to achieve certain achievements.
   • If a manager cannot discover a person's strengths and try to give full play to his strengths, then he can only receive the influence of his weaknesses, weaknesses, and weaknesses, the results are neither completed nor valid.
   • If you think too much about people's weaknesses, your organization will be affected to achieve your goals.
   • What a person can do is the reason why the organization focuses on him. What he cannot do is his limitation.
   • Effective managers will consider the following principles when employing people: 1) They will not design their positions as competent only by God. If two or three people fail to hold a single position, it must be a job that is not competent by ordinary people and should be re-designed; 2) the requirements of the position should be strict, the coverage should be wide. When a knowledge worker is in a certain position at the beginning, his standards should be able to serve as a guide for his future development, and should be able to serve as a basis for him to measure his own contribution and evaluate his contribution. 3) priority should be given to what a person can do, rather than the requirements of a position. 4) We need to know that, while employing the power of human resources, we need to tolerate human weaknesses. Managers must pay attention to opportunities when employing people, rather than focusing on existing problems.
   • If you need to evaluate a person's abilities, you must determine whether the person can complete the task. In general, it is of no use to say that the person is an "expert.
   • What contribution can a person make in an organization? His knowledge and skills are a factor. The values and goals of an organization are equally important.
   • When we say that a job is "indispensable to someone", it is generally because: 1) a person is actually not good, but the manager is not demanding it; 2) the manager's own ability is too bad, in fact, it is misuse of someone's talents to barely support a boss who is hard to stand up. 3) There is a serious problem lurking, this problem is concealed by misuse of someone's talents.
   • Only those who can stand the test of performance can be promoted. For a person without outstanding performance, especially a supervisor without outstanding performance, it is the responsibility of the manager to transfer the job relentlessly.
   • When a person's weakness may affect his or her strengths, the manager should consider how to use work and career opportunities to help him or her overcome his or her weaknesses.
   • The employing director is not only an element of effectiveness, but also a moral responsibility of the supervisor to its subordinates and a responsibility of the supervisor for his or her position and position.
   • As an indispensable quality for knowledge workers and society, hiring directors are a must for effective managers.
   • Effective managers often ask: What Can my boss do? What achievements did he achieve? What else do he need to know if he wants to take advantage of his strengths? What does he need me to do?
   • There are two main categories: reader and listener ".
   • It is the best way for managers to help their superiors make full use of their strengths.
   • Effective managers will explore opportunities and ask themselves: What can I do?
   • In an organization, each aspect of effectiveness is "Development of opportunities, and problems disappear ". Effective managers make everyone an opportunity for development.
   • The manager's task is not to change people, but to use the talents of each person.
5. Priority
   • The more managers want to make significant contributions, the more they need a longer "Whole Time". The more managers want to turn busy and complex tasks into achievements, the more they need continuous efforts, the longer the continuity time is required.
   • The more managers want to give full play to their strengths, the more they feel that they should concentrate on all available strengths at significant opportunities. This is the only way to achieve results.
   • People are a "multi-functional tool", but the best way to make effective use of human talents is to focus on the talents owned by individuals.
   • Because the managers are too many and too complex to deal with, they need to be especially focused. One job is the best way to speed up their work.
   • Some people have nothing to do, but they are actually doing very hard, for the reason: 1) They underestimate the time required to complete a task, and effective managers would have preferred to estimate the time demand, 2) General Managers always prefer to rush to work. 3) general managers prefer to start several important tasks at the same time, as a result, they cannot get enough minimum time for everything. As long as everything is blocked, everything is blocked.
   • The first principle is to get rid of the past that is no longer valuable.
   • Today is the result of yesterday's decisions and actions. A specific task of a manager is to devote today's resources to creating the future. Every manager must spend time, energy, and talents continuously, to make up for and jump out of yesterday's actions and decisions.
   • Yesterday's success often leaves an endless impact, far beyond the effective period of success, and evolves into "operating and management self-built assets", and is sacred and irretrievable.
   • A manager who wants to be effective and organizes an effective organization is bound to examine all programs, activities, and tasks on its own.
   • When an effective manager plans to create a new business, he must first delete an original business. Social organizations, like biological organisms, must stay small and refined.
   • A new job should be overcome in the event of great difficulties before it begins, or else the seeds of failure will begin.
   • Our problem is not lack of "innovation", but lack of creative execution.
   • Most companies or organizations have an inherent idea of their main products: Our company starts from this product and we have the responsibility to keep this product on the market.
   • Deciding to delay a job is not a pleasant task, because our "superior" is often the "Priority" of others ".
   • The most important thing about determining what should be prioritized and what can be delayed is not analysis, but the courage needed.
   • We can use the following principles to determine the priority of things: 1) focusing on the future rather than on the past; 2) focusing on opportunities rather than on difficulties; 3) Choosing our own direction, 4) The goal should be high, and there should be new ideas, so we should not just seek security and convenience.
   • When scientists engaged in research select research topics, if they focus on ease of success rather than on acceptance of challenges, their success will be quite limited even if they can succeed. True achievements only belong to those who are good at seizing the opportunity to select a subject, and to those who can take the rules established by others as the limiting factor rather than making decisions improperly.
   • The issue of priority over delay is not static. Based on actual changes, it is often necessary to reconsider and correct the order.
   • To concentrate on a job, you must first have enough courage to decide what to do and what to do first.
6. Decision Elements
   • Because a manager has a special position and knowledge, people expect him to make decisions that have a special impact on the entire Organization, performance, and results.
   • Effective managers make effective decisions. What they pay attention to is to identify what is routine and what is strategic. Their decision-making is the highest level and a few major conceptual decisions.
   • What managers need is the result of decision-making, rather than the skill of decision-making. What they need is reasonable decision-making, rather than clever decision-making.
   • If a decision cannot be put into practice, it is not a real decision, but a good willingness at most. Although effective decision-making is based on high-level rational understanding, the implementation of decision-making must be as close as possible to the work level and be simple.
   • Effective managers focus on the highest level of conceptual understanding when solving problems. They first thoroughly think about what the decision is, and then study the principles that should be adopted in making decisions.
   • Five elements of decision-making: 1) understanding the nature of the problem; 2) identifying the boundaries that must be met when solving the problem; 3) carefully considering the correct solution to the problem, and the conditions that these solutions must meet; 4) the Decision-Making solution should take into account the implementation measures, so that the decision-making programming can be implemented; 5) the feedback should be emphasized during the implementation process, to verify the correctness and effectiveness of the decision.
   • The problems we encounter can be divided into the following categories: 1) true and regular problems; 2) although they happen occasionally under certain special circumstances, they are still a regular problem in essence; 3) Real Occasional special events; 4) first occurrence of "frequent events ".
   • There are few real accidental exceptions. When this happens, we need to ask ourselves: this is a "real accidental event ", or is it the first appearance of another "frequent event?
   • Mistakes we often make when making decisions include: 1) mistaken "frequent problems" as a series of "occasional problems"; 2) mistaken "New Problems" as a recurrence of old diseases, therefore, the old principles are still applied. 3) some fundamental problems are clearly defined. 4) Only the problem is visible, but not the whole picture.
   • When an effective decision maker encounters a problem, he always assumes that the problem is "regular" and assumes that the problem is a superficial phenomenon, and another fundamental problem exists. He wants to find out the real problems, not just to solve the surface problems.
   • As an effective decision maker, the first step is to seek a solution from the highest level of concept.
   • Effective managers generally do not make too many decisions. This is not because it takes a long time to make a principled decision, but because they do not have to make too many decisions, he has designed a set of rules and policies to solve frequent incidents.
   • If a manager needs to make decisions every day and make decisions from time to time, it means he is a lazy and ineffective person.
   • The so-called "boundary condition" refers to the minimum goal of decision-making? What conditions should be met. For important decisions, it is not enough to determine the boundary conditions and propose standards simply by "facts". It also depends on how we understand the problems. This is a risky judgment.
   • To determine whether decisions are easily accepted by others, if you always need to consider how they can be accepted by others and are afraid that others will oppose them, it is a waste of time without any results.
   • What you worry about in the world often never appears, But what you never worry about may suddenly become a great obstacle.
   • If you need to turn a decision into action, you must answer the following questions: 1) who should understand the decision? 2) what actions should be taken? 3) who takes action? 4) How should these actions be performed so that the executed personnel can follow them?
7. Effective Decision-Making
   • Decision-making is a kind of judgment, which is selected among several schemes. In addition, most of the options are not necessarily better than those of other options.
   • Effective decision-making is usually generated from a variety of different and conflicting insights, often from a variety of consistent ideas, advantages and disadvantages of each other.
   • Effectively, managers know that a decision is not based on facts, but their own opinions. The facts he has collected must be based on his own conclusions. Since he has come to a conclusion, he must be able to collect many facts.
   • Effective managers encourage everyone to put forward their opinions, but while encouraging them, they will also ask everyone to think deeply about their opinions and recognize the results of their insights after being verified.
   • Effective managers usually have to assume that the traditional measurement method is not an appropriate measurement method, otherwise they do not need to make decisions.
   • Managers do not get their decisions from the word "Public mouth". Good decisions should be based on conflicting opinions and chosen from different points of view and different judgments, therefore, no decision can be made unless you have different opinions.
   • Correct decisions must be based on the full discussion of different opinions.
   • Managers should pay attention to the negative opinions, because: 1) only the negative opinions can protect decision makers from becoming prisoners of the Organization; 2) the negative opinions themselves and the "another solution" required for formal decision-making "; 3) negative opinions can stimulate imagination and different opinions, especially those that have been carefully inferred and repeatedly thought about and arguments, and identify the most effective factors that stimulate imagination.
   • Effective policy makers take or do not take any action, rather than half the action. Taking only half of the action is an uncompromising mistake. It is an error that absolutely does not meet the minimum requirements and does not meet the boundary conditions.
   • If the decision is really difficult, it may be due to unnecessary details. As for the tenth time, it may be that the thinking before the decision is poor, ignoring an important fact in the problem, it may be a negligence or mistake, or maybe it is a wrong research.
   • One of the basic weaknesses of large organizations is that middle-level people have very few opportunities for Decision-Making training, making it difficult to hold high-level decision-making positions.