Book Review: The Effective Executive

The most important thing I can say is read this book with an open mind. Yes, the examples are outdated but they are significant, not to mention it is nice to read about events we have seen the ongoing impact of. Yes, the beginning sounds like a pep speech to daily office workers but where do you think the speakers pulled their content from? Yes, he is overly liberal in defining executive.

These two alone almost caused me to put the book down but I picked up a highlighter, more as a bookmark, and read on. I do not thing I have ever highlighted more of a book than I have here. I have found that texts follow a divergent, convergent pattern and it is the convergent literature that is concise and most time tested. This text encompasses what we know about business and productivity, avoiding reading multiple volumes on each topic.

This book is part practical advice, part motivational fluff for Drucker’s knowledge worker that encompasses many educated people and those skilled in intangibles. This is significant, as we see products all around us which are made by somebody and when people ask what we do our response is somewhere around ‘computer stuff’. It is the final chapter that solidified my belief in the motivational fluff, it discusses why managers should encourage their staff to read it. The problem with discounting fluff is it is the cornerstone of reawakening the driving spirit in the intellectually skilled, which need to be reminded of the answer to, ‘Why do I do this every day anyway?’

My father-in-law can drive around Chicago, point out buildings telling everybody he helped build them, I have been in the car enough now that I can give this tour… It seems like human nature that we want to leave a legacy that will outlive us and we are grappling with this as knowledge workers. There are significant planning guidelines and recommendations in this text and now more highlighting than most any book I own.

This has now been added into my rotation of gift/career cycle books:
Fresh out of school / new focus: how to Win Friends and Influence People
Feeling a lull in life / need meaning to your career: The Effective Executive
Need to identify the change needed: What Color is Your Parachute
Recovering from unplanned change: Who Moved My Cheese