Book Review: Managing Oneself by Peter F. Drucker

Book Review

Managing Oneself — Peter Drucker

Peter F. Drucker is considered the founder of modern management and has guided many organizations in making management decisions. This article/book is more for individuals in today’s connected economy. If you are making career decisions this is a must read for you. It will help give you perspective on how to find the path that best fits you. This was a gift from a friend when I was trying to figure out my own path and how to get where I wanted to be.

The main focus of Drucker’s book is guiding you to the conclusion of finding success in the knowledge economy. Those who know themselves win. Do you know your strengths? What about you weaknesses? Drucker suggests person can only perform from their strengths so only focus on what you are good at. This lines up with points from Tim Ferriss’s book “The Four Hour Work-Week.” Outsource everything that you aren’t good at and double down spending your time on what makes you the most money, which ideally is what you are good at. “Throughout history people had little need to know their strengths until know,” suggests Drucker. In today’s world you must know yourself in order to thrive and properly invest your time. A method he recommends to test your strengths and weaknesses is to take a key action and write down your assumption of what will happen in 6 months. I can guess that the conclusion will bea little bit different then what you expect. This is a good way to test your hypothesis on how to get where you want to be as well as showing you what you are competent with. Drucker suggests that this is a great way to find gaps in your knowledge as well as to see if your intellectual ignorance is holding you back.

How many people have you ever heard say that they have an idea for an app, business, non-profit, etc? Probably your fair share. “Ideas don’t move mountains. Bulldozers move mountains.” That quote is as powerful as it is true. Think about it for a second. Everyone has an idea but how many people are bulldozers? You must absolutely find a way to carry out your plan or idea otherwise it is worthless. On the other side of the coin you must know when the idea has to be stopped or abandoned. I am as guilty of this as anybody else. Believing that my idea or coming up with the idea was the most important part of starting something. In reality that is only a small part in the bigger plan. This goes along with what they teach at the University of Iowa’s Venture School. Coming up with an idea is only the beginning then you must hypothesize, test, analyze results, and retest to find out what the market need really is. Before you talk about your idea get out and talk to the people who’s pain you are alleviating. You will be surprised what you find out.

“Are poor manners holding you back?” “Remember people’s names and ask about their families.” I am guilty of forgetting to remember names and ask about families. It is a simple thing but people will appreciate you asking about them. “Having good manners will allow two people to work together even if they don’t like each other.” Makes sense right? Having good manners and treating someone with respect will allow you to work together even if you don’t get along famously. How could you improve your manners?

“A person’s way of performing can be modified but is unlikely to change.” People’s performance can be modified to improve efficiency or effectiveness but they are likely to stick with what they know. In the human resources this is very important to consider while trying to improve employee performance. This will help to temper expectations and to understand who your real all star employees are. “A few common personality traits determine how a person performs.” Continuing with the point above, what would you consider to be the personality traits of your best employees? This could be powerful information if you are doing the hiring of future employees. Find a personality test and give it to all of your employees. Sort them based upon the level of effectiveness and figure out where the best fall into. Select your future employees based on this method and you could find a better way to finding the best employees.

“Are you a reader or a listener?” “How do I learn?” How well do you know your learning style? I learn from conversing the information with others in order to process and remember it. I am not sure if I am more of a reader or listener but that is something that I will work on figuring out. If you can figure out this information it could allow you to improve your ability to learn and retain information.

Overall, this book was an interesting exercise in self-awareness. It made me realize that I may not know myself as well as I think I do in certain areas but am excelling in others. It is a short read but has a lot of good information. Give it a shot and see if you can figure out your strengths. You might be glad you did.