Introducing The Effective Executive

 

Peter Drucker, considered by many to be the "father" of modern management, wrote extensively on the effective executive. The most fundamental and important point he made is that an executive needs first to be effective and second to be efficient. 

As Drucker showed, effective means you are doing the right things, while efficient has to do with how well you are doing them. To dig the world's best hole is not useful if you didn't need a hole in the first place, a mistake that is sometimes made by all of us. 

In time management, we have the grid that sorts tasks into urgent-not urgent and important-not important, and if we look at the four combinations, we find that it is tempting to focus on the things that seem urgent, even when they are unimportant. We would get more value from doing the urgent-important things first and waiting until later on the others.

One of the services of an executive coach can be to help executives gain clarity on their priorities, based on the overall mission of the organization and the executive's role in pursuing that mission. Ideally, a company mission provides a compass with which all functions in the organization should align, so that overall, the company is doing right things first, and hopefully, doing them well.

This is important, because many executives are bombarded by a plethora of competing demands for her attention, and a coach can help preserve sanity in such situations. 

One of the questions that can be helpful when it seems so much has to be done is, "What will happen if I ignore that specific demand?" And while we may not know for certain, we can assign a likelihood and also a severity of impact should the negative outcome occur. A good rule to follow is that, if the probability of occurrence is low but severity would be high, best to attend to the item to avoid the impact. However, if the impact would be nil, regardless of probability, then ignore it.

In this blog, we will explore those factors that affect the effectiveness of executives and how to deal with each of them. As an executive coach, I have an agenda, of course, but I hope you will find the ideas presented to be useful in any event.

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