Managing Yourself: Extreme Productivity,Principle 2: It’s Not the Time You Spend but the Results You Produce
19/02/ · HBR’s 10 Must Reads. First part. - Boston: HBR, - p. (HBR’s) Language: English This six-title collection includes only the most critical articles from the world’s top 01/09/ · Find new ideas and classic advice for global leaders from the world's best business and management experts Click Download or Read Online button to get Hbr S 10 Must Reads On Managing Yourself book now. This site is like a library, Use search box in the widget to get ebook that you want. If the HBR’S 10 MUST READS ON MANAGING YOURSELF, VOL. 2 BY HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW Contents What Skills Will Magnify My Strengths? 3 What Difference Can a Single Download PDF HBR S 10 MUST READS ON MANAGING YOURSELF Audible Studios on Brilliance, CD-Audio. Condition: New. Unabridged. Language: English. Read PDF ... read more
chief of learn and that it is the same way for everybody. staff—and probably the most successful picker But to be forced to learn the way a school of men in U. Indeed, there are probably half a duced, but he would be the worst commander. Some people work best as team members. There are people, like Churchill, who learn Others work best alone. Some are exception- by writing. Some people learn by taking copi- ally talented as coaches and mentors; others ous notes. Beethoven, for example, left behind are simply incompetent as mentors. an enormous number of sketchbooks, yet he Another crucial question is, Do I produce re- said he never actually looked at them when he sults as a decision maker or as an adviser? A composed. If I put it making the decision. A good many other peo- into a sketchbook, I never forget it and I never ple, by contrast, need an adviser to force them- have to look it up again. Others learn by hearing themselves talk. and act on them with speed, self-confidence, A chief executive I know who converted a and courage.
small and mediocre family business into the This is a reason, by the way, that the num- leading company in its industry was one of ber two person in an organization often fails those people who learn by talking. He was in when promoted to the number one position. Do not try to change the habit of calling his entire senior staff into The top spot requires a decision maker. Strong his office once a week and then talking at them decision makers often put somebody they trust yourself—you are for two or three hours. He would raise policy into the number two spot as their adviser— issues and argue three different positions on and in that position the person is outstanding.
unlikely to succeed. Work each one. He rarely asked his associates for But in the number one spot, the same person to improve the way you comments or questions; he simply needed an fails. He or she knows what the decision should audience to hear himself talk. And although he is a fairly extreme ally making it. case, learning through talking is by no means Other important questions to ask include, an unusual method. Successful trial lawyers Do I perform well under stress, or do I need a learn the same way, as do many medical diag- highly structured and predictable environ- nosticians and so do I. Do I work best in a big organization or Of all the important pieces of self-knowledge, a small one?
Few people work well in all understanding how you learn is the easiest to kinds of environments. Again and again, I acquire. And the re- few answer yes. And yet, acting on this knowl- verse is equally true. edge is the key to performance; or rather, not The conclusion bears repeating: Do not try acting on this knowledge condemns one to to change yourself—you are unlikely to suc- nonperformance. But work hard to improve the way you Am I a reader or a listener? and How do I perform. And try not to take on work you can- learn? are the first questions to ask. But they not perform or will only perform poorly. are by no means the only ones.
To manage yourself effectively, you also have to ask, Do I What Are My Values? work well with people, or am I a loner? And if To be able to manage yourself, you finally you do work well with people, you then must have to ask, What are my values? This is not a ask, In what relationship? question of ethics. With respect to ethics, the Some people work best as subordinates. Gen- rules are the same for everybody, and the test eral George Patton, the great American military is a simple one. The results of either strategy may be ers was the German ambassador in London.
pretty much the same. Yet in he physicians do better what they already do and a abruptly resigned rather than preside over a value system that is oriented toward making dinner given by the diplomatic corps for Ed- scientific discoveries. ward VII. The king was a notorious womanizer Whether a business should be run for short- and made it clear what kind of dinner he term results or with a focus on the long term is wanted. The ambassador is reported to have likewise a question of values. Successful businesspeo- That is the mirror test. Ethics requires that ple know better.
To be sure, every company you ask yourself, What kind of person do I has to produce short-term results. But in any want to see in the mirror in the morning? conflict between short-term results and long- What is ethical behavior in one kind of orga- term growth, each company will determine its nization or situation is ethical behavior in an- own priority. This is not primarily a disagree- other. But ethics is only part of a value sys- ment about economics. ness and the responsibility of management. One of the fastest-growing pas- own condemns a person both to frustration toral churches in the United States measures and to nonperformance. success by the number of new parishioners. Consider the experience of a highly success- Its leadership believes that what matters is ful human resources executive whose com- how many newcomers join the congregation. pany was acquired by a bigger organization. The Good Lord will then minister to their After the acquisition, she was promoted to do spiritual needs or at least to the needs of a the kind of work she did best, which included sufficient percentage.
Another pastoral, evan- selecting people for important positions. The church eases should hire people for such positions from the out newcomers who join but do not enter into outside only after exhausting all the inside pos- its spiritual life. But her new company believed in Again, this is not a matter of numbers. But it retains a far larger proaches—in my experience, the proper one is proportion of newcomers than the first one to do some of both. They are, however, funda- does. Its growth, in other words, is more solid. mentally incompatible—not as policies but as This is also not a theological problem, or only values. They bespeak different views of the re- secondarily so. It is a problem about values. Her values and the Organizations, like people, have values. They do not need to be the same, pany tries to obtain results by making constant, but they must be close enough to coexist.
This is the way it should be struc- plementary. But there is sometimes a conflict tured. These are the kind of results you should ex- strengths. In that case, the work may not appear Successful careers are not planned. tunities because they know their strengths, If I may, allow me to interject a personal their method of work, and their values. Many years ago, I too had to decide be- Knowing where one belongs can transform an tween my values and what I was doing success- ordinary person—hardworking and compe- fully. I was doing very well as a young invest- tent but otherwise mediocre—into an out- ment banker in London in the mids, and standing performer.
the work clearly fit my strengths. Yet I did not see myself making a contribution as an asset What Should I Contribute? People, I realized, were what I val- Throughout history, the great majority of peo- ued, and I saw no point in being the richest ple never had to ask the question, What man in the cemetery. I had no money and no should I contribute? They were told what to other job prospects. Despite the continuing contribute, and their tasks were dictated ei- Depression, I quit—and it was the right thing ther by the work itself—as it was for the peas- to do. Values, in other words, are and should ant or artisan—or by a master or a mistress— be the ultimate test. as it was for domestic servants. And until very recently, it was taken for granted that most What one does well— Where Do I Belong? people were subordinates who did as they A small number of people know very early were told.
Even in the s and s, the even very well and where they belong. time they are four or five years old. Physi- Then in the late s, no one wanted to be cians usually decide on their careers in their told what to do any longer. Young men and teens, if not earlier. But most people, espe- women began to ask, What do I want to do? Very few of the people who believed three questions: What are my strengths? and, What are my values? And tribution, self-fulfillment, and success achieved then they can and should decide where they any of the three. But still, there is no return to the old an- Or rather, they should be able to decide swer of doing what you are told or assigned to where they do not belong. The person who do. Knowledge workers in particular have to has learned that he or she does not perform learn to ask a question that has not been well in a big organization should have learned asked before: What should my contribution to say no to a position in one.
The person who be? To answer it, they must address three dis- has learned that he or she is not a decision tinct elements: What does the situation re- maker should have learned to say no to a deci- quire? Given my strengths, my way of per- sion-making assignment. A General Patton forming, and my values, how can I make the who probably never learned this himself greatest contribution to what needs to be should have learned to say no to an indepen- done? And finally, What results have to be dent command. achieved to make a difference? Equally important, knowing the answer to Consider the experience of a newly ap- these questions enables a person to say to an pointed hospital administrator. But this is the way I should be coasting on its reputation for 30 years. Typical is the person who was tion should be to establish a standard of ex- trained to write reports in his or her first as- cellence in one important area within two signment because that boss was a reader.
Even years. He chose to focus on the emergency if the next boss is a listener, the person goes on room, which was big, visible, and sloppy. He writing reports that, invariably, produce no re- decided that every patient who came into the sults. Invariably the boss will think the em- ER had to be seen by a qualified nurse within ployee is stupid, incompetent, and lazy, and he 60 seconds. But that could have been emergency room had become a model for all avoided if the employee had only looked at the hospitals in the United States, and within an- new boss and analyzed how this boss performs.
other two years, the whole hospital had been Bosses are neither a title on the organiza- transformed. It is incumbent on the people too far ahead. A plan can usually cover no who work with them to observe them, to find more than 18 months and still be reasonably out how they work, and to adapt themselves to clear and specific. So the question in most what makes their bosses most effective. Our experiences with him led us to wonder if he might have something interesting to say about personal productivity. So we asked him about it. The result was a series of blog posts for hbr. Who would be the best at carrying out each one?
It focuses on what an executive does best rather than on what the organization most needs from him or her. You may also be essential to recruiting senior staff. But a CEO has to hold back from taking on other responsibilities even if he or she excels at delivering on them. When CEO Rob Manning recruited me to join MFS as chairman, in , we explicitly divided the high-priority functions. Although I had run the investment management group at Fidelity, Rob is a talented investment guy and a natural leader who wanted to take charge of that group at MFS. The same applies to midlevel executives. You may be outstanding in finance and solid in marketing, but if your company is stacked with good finance people and very weak on marketing, your highest and best use is probably in the latter. Many executives also spend too much time on operational details, such as the best flight to take or the seating plan at a corporate dinner.
Such tasks should be delegated, if possible, to an executive assistant. Of course, the boss must be able to rely on this person to get the tasks done correctly, quickly, and politely. Once confidence is established, he or she should go to great lengths to support and retain such an assistant, who is crucial to being productive. Most executives, professionals, and entrepreneurs put a huge amount of time into their jobs. In a crisis it may be necessary to burn the midnight oil, but the ambitious have a tendency to stay late every night. This tendency arises from the implicit assumption that more hours equal more value added. That is too simplistic.
Your success should be measured by the results you produce, not the number of hours you log. When I joined a law firm in Washington, DC, I soon realized that charging clients for the number of hours worked made no sense. That billing method encouraged lawyers to work lots of hours rather than to get good results quickly. After a few years, my clients knew that I was efficient, so I ran an experiment. I sent them a letter explaining that in the future I would bill them for double the time I actually spent on their work—unless they objected. Not one client did. Focusing on results rather than hours has the added benefit of allowing a better balance between family and work.
When I had young children, I came home most weekdays at to have dinner and spend some quality time with them. Later in the evening, if necessary, I would work in my home office. On the weekends my children usually slept late, so I would work from to in the morning and have most of the day left to be with my family. Of course, work and home lives sometimes conflict, but that can often be managed. For example, I was working at the Securities and Exchange Commission when mortgage-backed securities started to become big, in the s. There was an intragovernmental task force on the subject with staff from the SEC, the Treasury, and the Fed.
Many people feel overwhelmed by the huge volume of reading and writing they have to do for their business. To be a speed reader, you have to be very clear in your own mind about why you are reading. For example, in reading the Financial Times after the Wall Street Journal , I am looking for international issues not covered by the Journal. Then go back and see how you could read more efficiently to obtain that paragraph or two. With e-mails, the first thing to do is to decide which ones need to be read. Second, if any of them are important, I try to answer them right away. The next morning I have hard copies of them on my desk and know what I need to respond to. When it comes to writing something longer than an e-mail, the key is to first figure out your argument. To do this, compose an outline before writing.
For an article or a memorandum, that means just four or five key points with a few subpoints under each. That is unfortunate. You should know where you will end up before you start. Try this: After composing an outline, write the concluding paragraph. That will tell you whether you really know where your article or memo is going. Most executives must give talks to various groups. They often prepare by writing out the full text of their remarks. But that makes them feel compelled to deliver the whole speech even if the audience is not receptive. Speaking is very different from writing.
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edu no longer supports Internet Explorer. To browse Academia. edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser. rahul ailawadi. Log in with Facebook Log in with Google. Remember me on this computer. Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link. Need an account? Click here to sign up. Download Free PDF. Managing Oneself. Nguyen Dang Khoa. Related Papers. Making Differences Matter A New Paradigm for Managing Diversity. Download Free PDF View PDF. org BEST OF HBR Success in the knowledge economy comes to those who know themselves—their Managing Oneself strengths, their values, and how they best perform. by Peter F. BEST OF HBR Managing Oneself by Peter F. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. where you started out. Now, most of us, even those of us with But with opportunity comes responsibility. We will have to place our- tively, be their own chief executive officers. And we will have to stay mentally alert change course, and to keep yourself engaged and and engaged during a year working life, productive during a work life that may span which means knowing how and when to some 50 years.
need to cultivate a deep understanding of your- self—not only what your strengths and weak- What Are My Strengths? nesses are but also how you learn, how you work Most people think they know what they are with others, what your values are, and where you good at. They are usually wrong. More often, can make the greatest contribution. Because only people know what they are not good at—and when you operate from strengths can you even then more people are wrong than right. achieve true excellence. And yet, a person can perform only from strength. That, in large measure, is what makes Throughout history, people had little them great achievers. But they are rare excep- need to know their strengths. ple with great expertise in one area—are But now people have choices. We need to contemptuous of knowledge in other areas or know our strengths in order to know where believe that being bright is a substitute for we belong. First-rate engineers, for instance, The only way to discover your strengths is tend to take pride in not knowing anything through feedback analysis.
Whenever you about people. Human beings, they believe, are make a key decision or take a key action, write much too disorderly for the good engineering down what you expect will happen. Nine or 12 mind. Human resources professionals, by con- months later, compare the actual results with trast, often pride themselves on their igno- your expectations. I have been practicing this rance of elementary accounting or of quantita- method for 15 to 20 years now, and every time tive methods altogether. But taking pride in I do it, I am surprised. The feedback analysis such ignorance is self-defeating. Go to work on showed me, for instance—and to my great sur- acquiring the skills and knowledge you need to prise—that I have an intuitive understanding fully realize your strengths. of technical people, whether they are engi- It is equally essential to remedy your bad neers or accountants or market researchers.
Such with generalists. habits will quickly show up in the feedback. Feedback analysis is by no means new. It For example, a planner may find that his beau- was invented sometime in the fourteenth cen- tiful plans fail because he does not follow tury by an otherwise totally obscure German through on them. Like so many brilliant peo- theologian and picked up quite independently, ple, he believes that ideas move mountains. some years later, by John Calvin and Igna- But bulldozers move mountains; ideas show tius of Loyola, each of whom incorporated it where the bulldozers should go to work. This into the practice of his followers. In fact, the planner will have to learn that the work does steadfast focus on performance and results not stop when the plan is completed.
He must that this habit produces explains why the insti- find people to carry out the plan and explain it tutions these two men founded, the Calvinist to them. He must adapt and change it as he church and the Jesuit order, came to dominate puts it into action. And finally, he must decide Europe within 30 years. when to stop pushing the plan. Practiced consistently, this simple method At the same time, feedback will also reveal will show you within a fairly short period of when the problem is a lack of manners. Man- time, maybe two or three years, where your ners are the lubricating oil of an organization. strengths lie—and this is the most important It is a law of nature that two moving bodies in thing to know.
The method will show you contact with each other create friction. This is what you are doing or failing to do that de- as true for human beings as it is for inanimate prives you of the full benefits of your objects. Manners—simple things like saying strengths. like each other or not. Bright people, espe- Several implications for action follow from cially bright young people, often do not un- feedback analysis. First and foremost, concen- derstand this. If analysis shows that some- trate on your strengths. soon as cooperation from others is required, it Peter F.
Drucker is the Marie Rankin Second, work on improving your strengths. probably indicates a lack of courtesy—that is, Clarke Professor of Social Science and Analysis will rapidly show where you need to a lack of manners. Management Emeritus at Claremont improve skills or acquire new ones. It will also Comparing your expectations with your re- Graduate University in Claremont, Cali- show the gaps in your knowledge—and those sults also indicates what not to do. We all fornia. This article is an excerpt from his can usually be filled. Mathematicians are born, have a vast number of areas in which we have book Management Challenges for the but everyone can learn trigonometry. no talent or skill and little chance of becom- 21st Century HarperCollins, Third, discover where your intellectual arro- ing even mediocre.
One Eisenhower in open contempt. He never ad- should waste as little effort as possible on im- dressed the questions, they complained, but proving areas of low competence. It takes far rambled on endlessly about something else. And yet most people—especially most Eisenhower apparently did not know that teachers and most organizations—concen- he was a reader, not a listener. When he was trate on making incompetent performers into Supreme Commander in Europe, his aides mediocre ones. Energy, resources, and time made sure that every question from the press should go instead to making a competent per- was presented in writing at least half an hour son into a star performer.
before a conference was to begin. And then Eisenhower was in total command. When he How Do I Perform? became president, he succeeded two listeners, Amazingly few people know how they get Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Both things done. Indeed, most of us do not even men knew themselves to be listeners and both know that different people work and perform enjoyed free-for-all press conferences. Eisen- differently. Too many people work in ways that hower may have felt that he had to do what his are not their ways, and that almost guarantees two predecessors had done. As a result, he nonperformance. For knowledge workers, How never even heard the questions journalists do I perform? may be an even more important asked. And Eisenhower is not even an extreme question than What are my strengths? case of a nonlistener. It is a matter of personality. Whether his presidency, in large measure, by not know- to improve from personality be a matter of nature or nurture, it ing that he was a listener.
His predecessor, surely is formed long before a person goes to John Kennedy, was a reader who had assem- incompetence to work.
Managing yourself,Principle 1: Know Your Comparative Advantage
HBR’S 10 MUST READS ON MANAGING YOURSELF, VOL. 2 BY HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW Contents What Skills Will Magnify My Strengths? 3 What Difference Can a Single Download PDF HBR S 10 MUST READS ON MANAGING YOURSELF Audible Studios on Brilliance, CD-Audio. Condition: New. Unabridged. Language: English. Read PDF 01/09/ · Find new ideas and classic advice for global leaders from the world's best business and management experts 26/11/ ·. 6 thg 7, Download the book HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself for free in a convenient format epub, pdf, fb2, mobi. Read HBR's 10 Must Reads on Managing 19/02/ · HBR’s 10 Must Reads. First part. - Boston: HBR, - p. (HBR’s) Language: English This six-title collection includes only the most critical articles from the world’s top Popejoy, Brenda McManigle Conflict with direct reports is one of the most difficult challenges facing managers today. But it's reads managing bonus clayton [PDF] Download HBR's 10 ... read more
Focusing on results rather than hours has the added benefit of allowing a better balance between family and work. It is mostly marketing: what her goals are, how she works, boredom. A General Patton forming, and my values, how can I make the who probably never learned this himself greatest contribution to what needs to be should have learned to say no to an indepen- done? And finally, he must decide Europe within 30 years. And we will have to stay mentally alert change course, and to keep yourself engaged and and engaged during a year working life, productive during a work life that may span which means knowing how and when to some 50 years.
Pastebin API tools faq. soon as cooperation from others is required, it Peter F. You are reading your last free article for this month. Global Business Case Study Gunnar Trumbull Jonathan Schlefer. Interpersonal conflicts are common in the workplace, and it's easy to get caught up in them.
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