The man who focuses on efforts and who stresses his downward authority is a subordinate no matter how exalted his title and rank. But the man who focuses on contribution and who takes responsibility for results, no matter how junior, is in the most literal sense of the phrase, “top management.” He holds himself accountable for the performance of the whole.
It is a law of nature that two moving bodies in contact with each other create friction. This is as true for human beings as it is for inanimate objects.
1. The first is simply not to try to be clever. Innovations have to be handled by ordinary human beings, if they are to attain any size and importance at all, by morons or near-morons. Incompetence, after all, is the only thing in abundant and never-failing supply. Anything too clever, whether in design or execution, is almost bound to fail.
2. Don’t diversify, don’t splinter, don’t try to do too many things at once. This is, of course, the corollary to the ‘do’: be focused!
Any existing organization, whether a business, a church, a labor union, or a hospital, goes down fast if it does not innovate. Conversely, any new organization, whether a business, a church, a labor union, or a hospital, collapses if it does not manage. Not to innovate is the single largest reason for the decline of existing organizations. Not to know how to manage is the single largest reason for the failure of new ventures.
True, the number of functional managers should always be kept at a minimum, and there should be the largest possible number of ‘general’ managers who manage an integrated business and are directly responsible for its performance and results. Even with the utmost application of this principle the great bulk of managers will remain in functional jobs, however. This is particularly true of the younger people. A.
Around here, I am only the guy who is responsible. If these men don’t know what to do when they run into an enemy in the jungle, I’m too far away to tell them. My job is to make sure they know. What they do depends on the situation which only they can judge. The responsibility is always mine, but the decision lies with whoever is on the spot.” In.
This failure to ask reflects human stupidity less than it reflects human history.
Knowledge work is not defined by quantity. Neither is knowledge work defined by its costs. Knowledge work is defined by its results.
The brilliant insight is not by itself achievement.
If you have a goal that you still postpone, that means, it’s not one of your strengths.
But what stands out in Japanese history, as well as in today’s Japanese management behavior, is the capacity for making 180-degree turns – that is, for reaching radical and highly controversial decisions.
Introverts do better alone with competition, extraverts do better in large group without competition.
Strong decision makers often put somebody they trust into the number two spot as their adviser – and in that position the person is outstanding. But in the number one spot, the same person fails. He or she knows what the decision should be but cannot accept the responsibility of actually making it.
But the most important work of the executive is to identify the changes that have already happened. The important challenge in society, economics, politics, is to exploit the changes that have already occurred and to use them as opportunities. The important thing is to identify the “future that has already happened” – and to develop a methodology for perceiving and analyzing these changes. A.
Entrepreneurs innovate. Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurs innovate. Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship. It is the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth. Innovation, indeed, creates a resource. There is no such thing as a ‘resource’ until man finds a use for something in nature and thus endows it with economic value. Until then, every plant is a weed and every mineral just another rock.
Knowledge workers 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.
A recurrent crisis should always have been foreseen. It can therefore either be prevented or reduced to a routine which clerks can manage. The definition of a “routine” is that it makes unskilled people without judgment capable of doing what it took near-genius to do before; for a routine puts down in systematic, step-by-step form what a very able man learned in surmounting yesterday’s crisis. The recurrent crisis is not confined to the lower levels of an organization. It afflicts everyone.
To supply data is not enough. The data have to be integrated with strategy, they have to test a company’s assumptions, and they must challenge a company’s current outlook. One.