From Peter Drucker's The Effective Executive (Revised) :
The effective executive makes strength productive. He knows that one cannot build on weakness. To achieve results, one has to use all the available strengths -- the strengths of associates, the strengths of the superior, and one’s own strengths. These strengths are the true opportunities. To make strength productive is the unique purpose of organization. It cannot, of course, overcome the weaknesses with which each of us is abundantly endowed. But it can make them irrelevant. Its task is to use the strength of each man as a building block for joint performance.
When I was managing a team producing the operator instructions for MRI scanners, I used this as my guiding principle. My MRI technologists didn't know much at all about desktop publishing, my desktop publishers didn't know much about MRI, and my graphic artists really had no skills outside their abilities to draw better than any of us. But I found if I could structure the work to keep everyone working in their specific areas of expertise, we all did just fine, weaknesses be damned. And to be quite honest, I myself had more weaknesses than any of my team members whom I hired. But if I just kept the above paragraph firmly in focus, it really didn't matter either, and I did just fine too.
If you've never read any books by Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive is a great place to start. Jack Yoest shares one secret of Drucker's crystal-clear writing: He always ripped up his first draft, considering it a mere warm-up to his "real" writing.
Every age has a Guru, Drucker was one on our age.
- Mohan
http://www.garamchai.com/mohan
Posted by: M B | 11/13/2005 at 01:22 PM