Learned from Peter Drucker

April 23, 2008

William Cohen, the author of A Class with Drucker: The Lost Lessons of the World’s Greatest Management Teacher, shares what he learned about leadership, management and strategy from working under this great teacher.
Leadership is the basis of everything we do. Nothing gets done without leadership. There are numerous incidences in history where organizations with inferior resources and manpower have succeeded against enormous obstacles, including much stronger competitors or adversaries. It all depended on the leader. That’s why there’s the old saying that it’s better to have an army of lambs led by a lion than an army of lions led by a lamb.

Drucker predicted nearly every change in management. Peter Drucker was a genius whose interests and contributions extended into economics and social endeavor as well as both business and nonprofit management. He ranks right up there with Freud, Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton. Drucker invented management by objectives (MBO) and showed executives how to approach problems with their ignorance and problems rather than relying on their knowledge and experience. He also coined the term “knowledge worker” to define the new class of workers that would dominate the workforce of the future.

Every individual is different and cannot be treated the same. As a young manager I had a number of project managers reporting to me. They all had to be led in different ways. Project Manager A required every bit of information about everything. Project Manager B was the opposite. Project Manager C was so contrary that I almost transferred him to a staff position, but I soon discovered that he was an outstanding project manager despite his contrariness. A great leader knows how to bring these different personalities together, and, as Drucker said, “staff for their strengths and make their weaknesses irrelevant.”

Don’t be a “one-minute” manager. I once hired an individual I thought would work out well but he took longer than he should have with certain assignments. I would just do a “one-minute correction” and move on. But things didn’t improve. During his annual review I told him that I couldn’t give him a salary increase. That’s when he told me I was giving him projects with time conflicts. I told him I would give him more information on time priorities. He was right, and I had no more problems, so six months later I gave him a retroactive raise with back pay. This taught me that when things go awry, don’t be a “one-minute manager.” Instead, take the time to sit down and find out what is going on and take action to correct it.

Good leaders use creativity to maneuver tough spots. Consider CEO Ken Iverson of Nucor, a steel company in the 1980s-90s. When a recession hit, he insisted top managers take pay cuts and he took one himself. Then he went to a three-day work week for workers. At the end of a three-year recession he hadn’t laid off a single employee. If you need to lay people off, do everything possible to take care of them, including helping them in finding new employment.

Noted from here 

16 Rules To Live By- Bob Parsons

Here are the 16 rules I try to live by:

1. Get and stay out of your comfort zone. I believe that not much happens of any significance when we’re in our comfort zone. I hear people say, “But I’m concerned about security.” My response to that is simple: “Security is for cadavers.”

2. Never give up. Almost nothing works the first time it’s attempted. Just because what you’re doing does not seem to be working, doesn’t mean it won’t work. It just means that it might not work the way you’re doing it. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it, and you wouldn’t have an opportunity.

3. When you’re ready to quit, you’re closer than you think. There’s an old Chinese saying that I just love, and I believe it is so true. It goes like this: “The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.”

4. With regard to whatever worries you, not only accept the worst thing that could happen, but make it a point to quantify what the worst thing could be. Very seldom will the worst consequence be anywhere near as bad as a cloud of “undefined consequences.” My father would tell me early on, when I was struggling and losing my shirt trying to get Parsons Technology going, “Well, Robert, if it doesn’t work, they can’t eat you.”

5. Focus on what you want to have happen. Remember that old saying, “As you think, so shall you be.”

6. Take things a day at a time. No matter how difficult your situation is, you can get through it if you don’t look too far into the future, and focus on the present moment. You can get through anything one day at a time.

7. Always be moving forward. Never stop investing. Never stop improving. Never stop doing something new. The moment you stop improving your organization, it starts to die. Make it your goal to be better each and every day, in some small way. Remember the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Small daily improvements eventually result in huge advantages.

8. Be quick to decide. Remember what the Union Civil War general, Tecumseh Sherman said: “A good plan violently executed today is far and away better than a perfect plan tomorrow.”

9. Measure everything of significance. I swear this is true. Anything that is measured and watched, improves.

10. Anything that is not managed will deteriorate. If you want to uncover problems you don’t know about, take a few moments and look closely at the areas you haven’t examined for a while. I guarantee you problems will be there.

11. Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you’re doing. When you look at your competitors, remember that everything looks perfect at a distance. Even the planet Earth, if you get far enough into space, looks like a peaceful place.

12. Never let anybody push you around. In our society, with our laws and even playing field, you have just as much right to what you’re doing as anyone else, provided that what you’re doing is legal.

13. Never expect life to be fair. Life isn’t fair. You make your own breaks. You’ll be doing good if the only meaning fair has to you, is something that you pay when you get on a bus (i.e., fare).

14. Solve your own problems. You’ll find that by coming up with your own solutions, you’ll develop a competitive edge. Masura Ibuka, the co-founder of SONY, said it best: “You never succeed in technology, business, or anything by following the others.” There’s also an old Asian saying that I remind myself of frequently. It goes like this: “A wise man keeps his own counsel.”

15. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Lighten up. Often, at least half of what we accomplish is due to luck. None of us are in control as much as we like to think we are.

16. There’s always a reason to smile. Find it. After all, you’re really lucky just to be alive. Life is short. More and more, I agree with my little brother. He always reminds me: “We’re not here for a long time; we’re here for a good time.

Original should be here.