Getting The Right Things Done Book Report

Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things: most people have heard this Peter Drucker’s quote and many of them would even agree with it. Drucker’s book “The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done” lines up with his quote by addressing the importance of effectiveness amongst the executives, the knowledge workers whose decisions affect their organization’s performance. However, most executive jobs are nowadays occupied by intelligent and brilliant men who lack effectiveness (Drucker, pg. 1). In his book, Drucker lays out the framework for his readers to become effective in their work and does his job of being persuasive through his extrinsic and intrinsic credibility, laying out …show more content…
For example, he makes a statement that one must start with what is right rather than what is acceptable when making effective decisions considering the compromises that need to be made in the end. He then uses the example of the chairman and chief executive officer of General Motors Corporation, Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., who told him to write down his recommendations without worrying about his or his managers’ reactions as they needed his help to make the right compromises (Drucker, pg. 134-135). Another claim made by him addresses the appraisals used in the organizations to evaluate the employees followed by the description of his experience with the Japanese system. He further discusses that the Japanese neither used nor supported the appraisals as they considered them to just focus on the person’s faults while the executives must focus on their subordinates’ strengths to make them productive. At various points in his book and in this specific situation, Drucker not only makes logical arguments and provides evidence to support his claims, but also lays out the effective method to handle the situation and get the best results. He continues his discussion of the appraisals by providing the solution to the problem that appraisals carry with them of stressing on the employee’s weaknesses, thus preventing the …show more content…
Now it can no longer be neglected” (Drucker, pg. 3). It is especially the reason because the executives have the end responsibility for the success of their organization even though they cannot be measured by any of the yardsticks that have been established for the manual work. According to Drucker, most highly educated young people nowadays are only experts in a narrow subject while the executives must have knowledge about all the areas even if they are not experts. Achieving effectiveness is the most important for executives and should be prioritized as it is the tool that eventually leads to the success of the knowledge worker, thus the whole organization (Drucker, pg. 20). Hence, Drucker addresses some urgency of the situation as the entire burden of the organizations fall on their executives who are specialized only in a certain discipline and cannot possibly be experts in all the fields, but must be effective to be able to run the huge organizations that exist today. It is vital to yield most of the available resources i.e. people who are good in any one of the areas as they are the major resource and investment of the developed countries (Drucker, pg. 20 & 172). If the young people do not work at being effective from the very beginning, they can lead to the downfall of big organizations as they are the future of tomorrow and will fill the executive positions. Even though the book deals with