Effectiveness can be learned

Drucker uses the word executive for any knowledge worker whose decisions affect the results of an organisation. That includes many people without a fancy title.

He argues that effectiveness, getting the right things done, is not a talent people are born with. It is a set of practices that can be learned, and he identifies five of them.

He also notes the pressures that push executives towards ineffectiveness. Their time tends to belong to everyone else, daily operations keep demanding attention, and they work inside an organisation while its real results lie outside it, with customers.