One of the foundational principles in all my Defending Priorities training programmes is

Do the right task at the right time for the right reason’.

It is easy to say and sounds sensible but is difficult to achieve without the right information and context being available at the right time to make that right decision.

Too many people don’t have a robust priority and workload management system capable of supporting that right decision in the heat of a demanding day. They still succeed, of course, but often paying too high a personal price for that success.

One of my heroes is Peter Drucker, the Father of Management, and I still have my original Drucker books from studying ‘A Level’ Economics and the management papers in my ‘Chartered Insurer’ examinations when I embarked upon my insurance career.

My favourite Drucker book, though is The Daily Drucker 366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done. It is a book I dip into at least once a week for a super concentrated, one page, shot of Drucker wisdom.

This morning I opened the book on the 4th September page and just have to share its wisdom here with you:

The Five Practices of Effective People

All that effective executives have in common is the ability to get the right things done

The effective executives I have seen differ widely in their temperaments and abilities, in what they do and how they do it, in their personalities, their knowledge, their interests – in fact, in almost everything that distinguishes human beings. But all effective executives I’ve known perform only necessary tasks and eliminate unnecessary ones.

Five practices have to be acquired to be effective:

  1. Effective executives know where their time goes. They work systematically at managing the little of their time that can be brought under their control.
  2. Effective executives focus on outward contributions.
  3. Effective executives build on strengths – theirs and others. They do not build on weaknesses.
  4. Effective executives concentrate on superior performance where superior performance will produce outstanding results. They force themselves to stay within priorities.
  5. Effective executives make effective decisions. They know that this is a system – the right steps in the right sequence. They know that to make decisions fast is to make the wrong decisions.

Whenever I have found a person who – no matter how great in intelligence, industry, imagination, or knowledge – fails to observe these practices, I have also found an executive deficient in effectiveness.

ACTION POINTS:

Commit these five tasks to memory and practice them: know where your time goes; focus on outward contributions; build on strengths; concentrate on superior performance; and make effective decisions

If you are looking for proven principle based, practical workload, time and priority management training fit for the high volume, high velocity demands of today’s work environment why not get in touch. I promise you ‘Results Worth Talking About’.