Managing Oneself
by Peter R Drucker ,
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW,
JAN 2005 [abridged]
Most of us will have to
learn to manage ourselves and develop ourselves. We will have to place ourselves
where we can make the greatest contribution staying mentally alert and engaged
during a 50-year working life, which means knowing how and when to change the
work we do.
What Are My Strengths?
Most people think they know what they are good at. They
are usually wrong. More often, people know
what they are not good at – though more are wrong than right. Yet, a person can
perform only from strength. One cannot build performance on weaknesses, let
alone on something one cannot do at all.
Whenever you make a key decision or take a key action,
write down what you expect will happen. 9 or 12 months later, compare the
actual results with your expectations. I have been practicing this method for 15 - 20 years now, and
every time I’m surprised.
Practiced consistently, this will show you within 2 - 3
years, where your strengths lie - and this is the most important thing to
know. It will show you what
you are doing or failing to do that deprives you of the full benefits of your
strengths, where you are not particularly competent, and where you have no
strengths or ability to perform.
#1: Most importantly, concentrate
on your strengths. Put yourself where your strengths can produce results.
#2: Improve your strengths. Analysis will rapidly show where
you need to improve skills or acquire new ones. It will also show gaps in your
knowledge.
#3: Discover where your intellectual arrogance is causing
disabling ignorance and overcome it. Far too many people - especially
people with great expertise in one area - are contemptuous of knowledge in
other areas or believe that being bright is a substitute for knowledge. Go to work on acquiring the skills and
knowledge you need to fully realize your strengths.
Your bad habits - what
you do or fail to do that inhibits your effectiveness and performance - will
quickly show up in the feedback - problems like a lack of manners. Manners are
the lubricating oil of an organization – simply saying "please" and
"thank you", knowing people’s names, or keeping up with family news -
enables two people to work together whether they like each other or not. Bright
people, especially bright young people, often do not understand this.
Comparing your
expectations with your results also indicates what not to do. We all have a
vast number of areas in which we have no talent or skill and little chance of
becoming even mediocre.
One should waste as little effort as possible on
improving areas of low competence.
It takes far more energy
and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve
from 1st-rate performance to excellence.
Yet most people, teachers,
and organizations concentrate on making incompetent performers into mediocre
ones. Energy, resources,
and time should go instead to making a competent person into a star performer.
