Quotes About Efficiency

expected to get the right things done.

And productivity for the knowledge worker means the ability to get the right things done. It means effectiveness.

Abandon what is about to be obsolete, develop a system to exploit your successes, and develop a systematic approach to innovation.

The basic problem with the computer in business is not that computer technicians do not understand the managers' needs. It is that the managers do not take the time and trouble to think through their needs and to communicate them to the computer people.6 How the computer people satisfy the needs of the manager is their business. What the needs are is the manager's business. To expect the computer people to define the information needs of the managers is abdication.

Concept of the Corporation.

Drucker highlights two common ingredients: preparation with a clear purpose in mind ("why are we having this meeting?") and disciplined follow-up.

Effectiveness as an executive demands doing certain—and fairly simple—things.

Effective executives know where their time goes.

Now the effectiveness of the individual depends increasingly on his or her ability to be effective in an organization, to be effective as an executive.

Effective executives build on strengths

Effective executives concentrate on the few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results.

Effective executives, finally, make effective decisions

Gerenciar é fazer as coisas do jeito certo; liderar é fazer as coisas certas.

The effective executive knows that it is easier to raise the performance of one leader than it is to raise the performance of a whole mass.

Good follow-up is just as important as the meeting itself.

Even a conversation with only one other person is a meeting. Hence, if they are to be effective, executives must make meetings productive.

Make meetings productive

thus, as the organization grows, an increasing proportion of energy diverts to managing the internal mass rather than contributing to the outside world. Combine this with another Druckerian truth: The accomplishments of a single right person in a key seat dwarf the combined accomplishment of dividing the seat among multiple B-players.

The effective executive therefore knows that he has to consolidate his discretionary time. He knows that he needs large chunks of time and that small driblets are no time at all. Even one quarter of the working day, if consolidated in large time units, is usually enough to get the important things done. But even three quarters of the working day are useless if they are only available as fifteen minutes here or half an hour there.

It's like a government agency that really works.

Rapid reading is not a difficult skill to learn.

Markets look a lot less efficient from the banks of the Hudson than from the banks of the Charles.

Over time, stress hormones from multitasking can damage memory centers in the brain. Focus on one task at a time for better efficiency and memory.

The combination of new equipment and new chemicals turned the American farm into the most efficient food bank on earth, capable of producing more wheat, corn, and so forth, per acre than any other country's farms in the history of agriculture.