CEO – Time (thoughts from The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker)

What does an effective executive do?  I remember asking myself that question as President of Zion Industries.  One man who provided many thought-provoking answers to that question was Peter Drucker.  Dr. Drucker died this past week at the age of 95 and, as a person who really enjoys gaining practical advice from what I read, I am saddened that the life of this prolific writer has come to a close.  Before we discuss some of Dr. Drucker’s thoughts from The Effective Executive, let’s gain a little background on this man. 

Born in Vienna in 1909, Peter Drucker was a child of privilege. His parents counted among their friends such luminaries as Sigmund Freud. As a young man, Drucker earned a law degree. He went on to obtain his doctorate in international law at the University of Frankfurt, though he always maintained that was more to please his father than himself. Troubled by the rise of the Nazis, Drucker moved to London to work for a merchant bank. 

Drucker immigrated to America in 1937 and it was in his adopted country that he did his most influential work. In his very first book, "The End of Economic Man," Peter Drucker analyzed the causes of totalitarianism, the insecurity, fear, depression and unemployment, the demons, as he put it, which created the conditions for the emergence of a dictator. 

Today, the idea that business management is a field worthy of serious academic study is uncontroversial, but before Peter Drucker, there really was no theory of management. His 18-month in-depth examination of General Motors led to the publication in 1946 of one of his most influential works, "Concept of the Corporation." The book was disavowed by GM management. Within a decade, Drucker published the work that would seal his reputation as a business guru, "The Practice of Management." 

Drucker counseled managers and union leaders to give employees more control over their work environment. He held the purpose of business was to create customers and that businesses should be profitable. He insisted employees were a resource and not a cost. 

Drucker stated that leadership is performance and not personality. What you accomplish and what you enforce others to perform is just a great function of making incredible demands, not making it easy for people. 

In a 2004 article for the Harvard Business Review, Drucker had some advice for today's business leaders: Listen first and speak last. 

Source: Peter Drucker, pioneer of social responsibility, dies, By: Watson, Ian, Sunday Business (United Kingdom), Nov 13, 2005 

I often quote Dr. Drucker in my business classes at Geneva College. A good discussion usually follows.

The Effective Executive and Time

Effectiveness can be learned.  It is a practice that must be acquired—it doesn’t come naturally.  But effective executives are not common.   

So what are effective executives expected to do?  GET THE RIGHT THINGS DONE 

Is there a secret ingredient to being an effective executive?  Dr. Drucker found little correlation between an executive’s effectiveness and her intelligence, imagination or knowledge.  Intelligence, imagination and knowledge are essential resources, but only effectiveness converts them into results.   

One of the basic motivations for an executive is his ability to achieve.  And Dr. Drucker points out that every knowledge worker in modern organizations is an “executive” if he affects the capacity of the organization to perform and to obtain results.  For example, the most subordinate manager may do the same kind of work as the president of the company (i.e., plan, organize, integrate, motivate, measure).  Within his sphere, he is the executive.

The executive, even the CEO, has to deal with a few realities that are essentially outside his control.  For example, the executive’s time seems to belong to everyone else.  Much of a CEO’s time is taken up with the demands of others.  It seems that executives normally have no time of their own, because their time is always pre-empted by matters of importance to somebody else.   

And so the next Weekly Insight will focus on an executive’s time.

But for the balance of this installment, let’s think “Christianly” about the effective executive.  How would Jesus judge the effectiveness of anyone—including a CEO?  

“And one of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him.  “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”  And He said to him, “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the great and foremost commandment.  The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”  Matthew 22:34-40 

We know that CEOs have a fiduciary responsibility to the owners of the organization they serve.  And the list of stakeholders is almost endless to whom the CEO has some form of responsibility.  But would Jesus, when asked to evaluate the effectiveness of a CEO, focus in on corporate profitability, market share, return on investment?

Or would He zero in on the CEO’s heart as He did Peter’s in John 21 where He asked, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” 

The CEO struggles to respond, but weakly answers, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” 

“Then shepherd my sheep.” 

How does that fit within the job description of a modern-day CEO?  Should it? 

Have a blessed week. 

Keith

www.daystarconsulting.com