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There is one final question the effective decision-maker asks: 'Is a decision really necessary?' One alternative is always the alternative of doing nothing. Every decision is like surgery. It is an intervention into a system and therefore carries with it the risk of shock. One does not make unnecessary decisions any more than a good surgeon does unnecessary surgery. Individual decision-makers, like individual surgeons, differ in their styles. Some are more radical or more conservative than others. But by and large, they agree on the rules.

Strong people always have strong weaknesses too. Where there are peaks, there are valleys. And no one is strong in many areas. Measured against the universe of human knowledge, experience, and abilities, even the greatest genius would have to be rated a total failure. There is no such thing as a 'good man'. Good for what? is the question.

'One cannot hire a hand - the whole man always comes with it,' says a proverb of the human relations people. Similarly, one cannot by oneself be only strong; the weaknesses are always with us.

Executives who do not ask themselves: 'What can I contribute?' are not only likely to aim too low, they are likely to aim at the wrong things. Above all, they may define their contribution too narrowly.

But above all, replace the quest for success with the quest for contribution. The critical question is not, 'How can you achieve?' but 'What can you contribute?'

Effective executives focus on outward contribution. They gear their efforts to results rather than to work. They start out with the question, 'What results are expected of me?'

there is a subtler reason for insistence on impersonal, objective jobs. It is the only way to provide the organization with the human diversity it needs. It is the only way to tolerate - indeed to encourage - differences in temperament and personality in an organization. To tolerate diversity, relationships must be task-focused rather than personality-focused. Achievement must be measured against objective criteria of contribution and performance. This is possible, however, only if jobs are defined and structured impersonally. Otherwise the accent will at once be on 'Who is right?' rather than on 'What is right?' In no time, personnel decisions will be made on 'Do I like this fellow?' or 'Will he be acceptable?' rather than by asking: 'Is he the man most likely to do an outstanding job?'

The second rule for staffing from strength is to make each job demanding and big. It should have challenge to bring out whatever strength a man may have. It should have scope so that any strength that is relevant to the task can produce significant results.

Effective executives know what they expect to get out of a meeting, a report, or a presentation and what the purpose of the occasion is or should be. They ask themselves: 'Why are we having this meeting: do we want a decision, do we want to inform, or do we want to make clear to ourselves what we should be doing?' They will insist that the purpose be thought through and spelled out before a meeting is called, a report asked for, or a presentation organized.

To be effective, every knowledge worker, and especially every executive, therefore needs to be able to dispose of time in fairly large chunks. To have small dibs and dabs of time at his disposal will not be sufficient even if the total is an impressive number of hours.

First one tries to identify and eliminate the things that need not be done at all, the things that are purely waste of time without any results whatever. To find these time-wastes, one asks of all activities in the time records: 'What would happen if this were not done at all?' And if the answer is, 'Nothing would happen,' then obviously the conclusion is to stop doing it.

Effective executives build on strengths - their own strengths, the strengths of their superiors, colleagues, and subordinates; and on the strengths in the situation, that is, on what they can do. They do not build on weakness. They do not start out with the things they can't do.

But a meeting called by him to stimulate thinking and ideas also does not become simply a presentation on the part of one of the members, but is run to challenge and stimulate everybody in the room. He always, at the end of his meetings, goes back to the opening statement and relates the final conclusions to the original intent.

If there is any one 'secret' of effectiveness, it is concentration. Effective executives do first things first and they do one thing at a time.

The effective executive, therefore, always asks: 'What does this fellow have to see if his position were, after all, tenable, rational, intelligent?' The effective executive is concerned first with understanding. Only then does he even think about who is right and who is wrong.

Effective executives know where their time goes. They work systematically at managing the little of their time that can be brought under their control.

Results come primarily from building on strength, not shoring up weakness.

The meeting, the report or the presentation are the typical work situations of the executive. They are his specific, everyday tools. They also make great demands on his time - even if he succeeds in analysing his time and in controlling whatever can be controlled.

Effective executives, in my observation, do not start with their tasks. They start with their time. And they do not start out with planning. They start by finding out where their time actually goes. Then they attempt to manage their time and to cut back unproductive demands on their time. Finally they consolidate their 'discretionary' time into the largest possible continuing units. This three-step process: recording time; managing time; and consolidating time is the foundation of executive effectiveness.

To make strength productive is the unique purpose of organization. It cannot, of course, overcome the weaknesses with which each of us is abundantly endowed. But it can make them irrelevant. Its task is to use the strength of each man as a building block for joint performance.

The effective decision-maker does not start out with the assumption that one proposed course of action is right and that all others must be wrong. Nor does he start out with the assumption, 'I am right and he is wrong.' He starts out with the commitment to find out why people disagree.

act if on balance the benefits greatly outweigh cost and risk; and - act or do not act; but do not 'hedge' or compromise. The surgeon who only takes out half the tonsils or half the appendix risks as much infection or shock as if he did the whole job.

Effective executives concentrate on the few major areas where superior performance will produce outstanding results. They force themselves to set priorities and stay with their priority decisions.

The first step toward effectiveness is a procedure: recording where the time goes.

The next question is: 'Which of the activities on my time log could be done by somebody else just as well, if not better?'

This is the 'secret' of those people who 'do so many things' and apparently so many difficult things. They do only one at a time. As a result, they need much less time in the end than the rest of us.

Effective executives do not make a great many decisions. They concentrate on the important ones. They try to think through what is strategic and generic, rather than solve problems. They try to make the few important decisions on the highest level of conceptual understanding.

Effective executives finally make effective decisions. They know that this is, above all, a matter of system - of the right steps in the right sequence. They know that an effective decision is always a judgment, based on 'dissenting opinions' rather than on 'consensus on the facts'. And they know that to make many decisions fast means to make the wrong decisions. What is needed are few, but fundamental, decisions. What is needed is the right strategy rather than razzle-dazzle tactics.

Long ago it should have been clear that a small percentage of drivers - drunken drivers, for instance, or the 5 per cent who are 'accident-prone' and cause three quarters or so of all accidents - are beyond the reach of driver training and can cause accidents on the safest road.

Time is the scarcest resource; and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed. The analysis of one's time, moreover, is the one easily accessible and yet systematic way to analyse one's work and to think through what really matters in it.

The great majority of executives tend to focus downward. They are occupied with efforts rather than with results. They worry over what the organization and their superiors 'owe' them and should do for them. And they are conscious above all of the authority they should have. As a result, they render themselves ineffectual.

the executive is, first of all, expected to get the right things done. And this is simply saying that he is expected to be effective.

Knowledge work is not defined by quantity. Neither is knowledge work defined by its costs. Knowledge work is defined by its results. And for these, the size of the group and the magnitude of the managerial job are not even symptoms.

The effective executive does not, in other words, truly commit himself beyond the one task he concentrates on right now. Then he reviews the situation and picks the next one task that now comes first.

The executive who wants to be effective and who wants his organization to be effective always polices all programmes, all activities, all tasks. He always asks: 'Is this still worth doing?' And if it isn't, he gets rid of it so as to be able to concentrate on the few tasks that, if done with excellence, will really make a difference in the results of his own job and in the performance of his organization.

Executives are not paid for doing things they like to do. They are being paid for getting the right things done - most of all in their specific task, the making of effective decisions.