Effective Executive - Conclusion

An executive's job is to be effective

And and effectiveness can be learned. 

1. The first step toward effectiveness is a procedure: recording

where the time goes.

After this the time wasters are identified and priorities are reset and it will increase the executive's effectiveness. This can also be done by going through a checklist every few months. 

2. The next step is for an executive to focus on contribution. To contribute is to ask questions about where can he contribute, his values and placing higher goals on himself. In other words to think through purpose than means alone. 

3. Making strengths productive is fundamentally an attitude

expressed in behavior. It is fundamentally respect for the person—one’s own as well as others. It is a value system in action.But it is again “learning through doing” and self-development

through practice. In making strengths productive, the executive integrates individual purpose and organization needs, individual capacity and organization results, individual achievement and

organization opportunity.

4. It is the habit of putting first things first.  It is develop the behaviors of self reliance, foresight to see things right and courage. It is about developing leadership of dedication, determination and serious purpose. 

5. The effecive decision is not straightforward. It has to be taken based on the situation but still the process which can be followed like find the generic problem, find the specifications of the solutions, find the boundary conditions and take a decision which can satisfy the conditions and make the decision into action steps and get feedback regularly are only steps for that. It will train executives in effective judgement. 

One more line verbatim from the book - 

Organizations are not more effective because they have better

people. They have better people because they motivate to

self-development through their standards, through their habits,

through their climate. And these, in turn, result from systematic,

focused, purposeful self-training of the individuals in becoming

effective executives.

Self-development of the executive toward effectiveness is the

only available answer. It is the only way in which organization

goals and individual needs can come together. The executive

who works at making strengths productive—his own as well as

those of others—works at making organizational performance

compatible with personal achievement. He works at making his

knowledge area become organizational opportunity. And by

focusing on contribution, he makes his own values become

organization results.

Finally effectiveness must be learned.