This was a quick and easy read. In the smalles 54 pages I have ever seen Peter F. Drucker summarizes what is important about managing oneself. No fluff, no excursions in unnecessary anecdotes.
Get to know yourself
Through **feedback analysis** you may determine what your style of performing and accomplishing is. Knowing this is paramount to success and sanity while building a career.
What are my strengths?
- Build on these strengths primarily
- Do not waste too much energy on eradicating weaknesses
- The energy needed will be much higher than concentrating on your talents and strengths.
Note: I define strengths as parts of my life that:
- come easy
- There is not too much resistance in the beginning and when finishing work you have some feeling of accomplishment (be it that you learned something new or that you crossed off substantial part of your planned todos)
- allow for a successes
- Having small wins regularily helps building momentum.
- minimize setbacks
- Avoiding failures so large, that they could ruin your motivation, helps keeping the momentum (failures are normal, and help you learn, do not expect ).
- statistically provide fun and contentment
- Waking up and dreading the task at hand will cause cancer (or at least cancerous thoughts).
But what I try to remind me of every day is:
Resistance, Failure & Frustration is normal, but balance is key!
How do I perform?
Everyone has his or her preferred way of performing. But only few ask themselves what it is for them? And even fewer act on this knowledge!
Am I a reader or a listener?
Am I a reader or a listener?
Am I an adviser or a decision maker?
Do I perform well under stress or do I need a highly structured and predictable environment?
Do I work better in large organizations or a small one?
How do I learn?
Do I learn through writing or through talking?
What are my values?
Value conflicts can cause the most friction and frustration in oneself and in organizations.
I should review my values and the compatibility with all endeavors regularly.
Where do I belong?
Answering these questions will help you to answer the question: “Where do I belong?”
It will take time. If you grow and develop yourself, it might change!
Where should I contribute to?
What does the situation require?
Given my strengths, my way of performing, my values, how can I make the greatest contribution to what needs to be done?
And finally, What results have to be achieved to make a difference? — page 35
Working with others
Today many call them “soft-skills”. But I like the term “core-skills” much more.
P.F.Drucker simply wrote “work on your manners”, which I thought of:
- be nice
- be empathetic
- listen to people
- put yourself in the shoes of others
- do not talk badly about people
I think these things need to be articulated explicitly today. In my romatic imagination the early 20th century had these things worked out much more intrinsically, before the culture of communication caused by the anonymity of the internet worked itself back into public discourse.
It is the law of nature that two moving bodies in contact with eachother create friction. This is as true for human beings as it is for inanimate objects. — page 8
Let empathy and curiosity rule
[…] accept the fact that other people are as much individuals as you yourself are. They perversely insist on behaving like human beings.
This means they too have their strengths; they too have their ways of getting things done; they too have their values. To be effective, therefore, you have to know the strengths, the performance models, and the values of your coworkers. — page 38
- Nobody has the same strengths
- Nobody has the same work ethics
- Nobody has the same performance models
- Nobody has the same ways of learning
- Nobody has the same ways of communicating
- Nobody has the same values
- Nobody has the same bio-rhythm
Note: I have observed the reluctance in many people to trying to find out how other people live or perform, or how to improve the effectiveness of team-work.
The more everyone tries to match a certain model of communication that includes everyone involved the more effective it will become. Although that needs to be reciprocal, one may have to introduce others to these concepts slowly. I found Nonviolent Communication to be a good starting point to talk about such shortcomings in a team or with a person.
Communicate Well
Do not assume people will proactively search for and communicate these findings, you just found out.
You **have to tell and ask** proactively!
[…] people do not know what other people are doing and how they do their work, or what contribution the other people are concentrating on and what results they expect. And the reason they do not know is that they have not asked and therefore have not been told. — page 41
When starting a new team or project, evaluate ground rules that everyone can identify with. And let everyone know about the preferred models of everybody else.
This means, express yourself:
This is what I am good at. This is how I work. These are my values. This is my contribution I plan to concentrate on and the results I should be expected to deliver. — page 44
Then ask:
And what do I need to know about your strengths, how you perform, your values, and your proposed contribution? — page 44
Plan for Optionality
Knowledge workers today will not work 40 years and retire happily. Most will do many things. Today I think it is a must to plan for many eventualities. This makes trying to create an abundance of options a crucial part of ones life.
P.F.Drucker talks about “parallel jobs”. I am planning to create parallel jobs too. Building things intrigues me. I want to test, rework and start anew!
Summary
Overall this is the most concise self-help book that I have read so far. Pure pragmatism. A book cannot tell you what your decisions should be or lay out the perfect plan until you are happily smiling on your death bed.
It introduces a few questions that — if answered and reiterated frequently — can help to find the right trajectory.
I want to read more of that man’s thoughts!