I profess that I have a generally irritable disposition to books on leadership and management. Most start on a high note and some wonderful metaphor or story, which can successfully propel the book to the mid-point, where the reader finds the author repeating herself and offering advice, which is the equivalent of truisms, such as "buy low, and sell high", "find your ideal niche," and "those who truly lead empower."
The management bookshelf is also incredibly "fad-driven" and seeks to divert our attention and try to persuade us to taste "the flavor of the month".
There are exceptions - meaty, substantive works - like Michael Porter's oeuvre, Demings' Total Quality Management, Robert Greenleaf's "Servant Leadership", the open book management movement's primers and case studies, and the Balanced Scorecard publications. But many of these are at times over-whelming. It reminds me of Peter Drucker's quip, that when the field of "operations research" emerged, the list of areas of knowledge and competency required to do such work was so large, that such a person would be wasted improving inventory management.
The other problem is that you are only one person. You can halfway control yourself, but trying to control other people is like herding cats or keeping mercenary soldiers on task when they've missed a paycheck.
This is where Peter Drucker's The Effective Executive: the Definitive Guide on Getting the Right Things Done (new edition: 2003) and Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People (revised edition) enter the scene. I know you're perplexed by this selection.
"Peter Drucker," you say "he's smart and has written as many books as Isaac Asimov.' He's a good stylist and any of his books offer a solid read. But why pick Dale Carnegie?"
I will defend my second choice later. Let's start with Drucker's book.
Drucker is wonderful - tough-minded and clear and practical. This book is based on two assumptions: "The executive's job is to be effective; and effectiveness can be learned." You do not have to be Alfred Sloan, Bill Gates, Henry Ford, Albert Einstein, or Picasso to be effective, because effective management is a skill or discipline that can and must be learned. It's not genetic. It's a series of habits and attitudes. And to be effective, you have to work on yourself. You can be shy, average in intelligence, blond or brunette, man or woman. "The executive is paid to be effective. He owes effectiveness to the organizations for which he works." Now, here are just some of the "tricks of the trade":
- Know how you're spending your time by monitoring and recording it for a few weeks.
- Do not waste the time of others through lots of random interruptions.
- See if you can hand-off some work so that you can concentrate on only what you can do.
- Run good meetings with different rules and clear goals. He identifies at least five types of meetings with varied processes and structure.
- Avoid an excess of meetings and be exclusive by keeping them small, with only essential staff. (But be open and communicate the results.).
- Create blocks of time for concentrated efforts.
- Keep close at hand two lists - one for the urgent and one for the unpleasant, with deadlines.
- Get clear on what you and only you can contribute to the organization. This could be direct results, strengthening the values of the organization and their affirmation, or nurturing and mentoring people's talent.
- Look for underutilized potential when grappling with your contribution.
- Help the non-managerial specialist knowledge worker to be effective, while being clear about what the organization expects.
- Focus on your contribution in a way that builds within, but does not lose sight of the world outside.
- Single out two priorities and a schedule. When you finish one, reprioritize and start again.
And many more great ideas abound in the book. There is not a weak chapter in The Effective Executive. The book includes a helpful conclusion and summary and an updated introduction. (A confession: I sought out this book after a serious managerial recent snafu by yours truly.)
The reader, at this point, is itching to contradict the Dale Carnegie choice. Isn't he from the horse-and-buggy era? Wasn't the book published in the late 1930s? It's antiquated "corn" like "the power of positive thinking," a throw-back to the old-school ways of thinking about business and executive management. It teaches how to be a manipulative sales person, not a real executive. Blah, blah, blah.
We need to step back in time to Carnegie's and get a little perspective. A dehumanizing Taylorism is the main philosophy of management, for example, in manufacturing concerns. De-skill the worker so that he's more replaceable, less powerful, and lower paid.
Before there was Dr. Phil, Anthony Robbins, Oprah, Tom Peters, and Stephen Covey, there was Dale Carnegie, an early convert to the human relations revolution in management (Mayo, etc.) and an advocate for self-help solutions. (Another confession: My father attributed the business success he had, despite his humble background, to becoming an officer in the Air Force and taking a Dale Carnegie course on public speaking, curbing worries that may beset you, and refining his sales and people skills.) How to Win Friends and Influence People was first published in 1937 and has sold over 15 million copies. An example of its common sense wisdom:
1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
2. Show respect for the other's opinion.
3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Let them do much or most of the talking.
6. See from their point of view.
7. Appeal to their nobler motives.
8. Throw down a challenge.
9. When criticizing somebody's work, you should "allow them to save face."
You get the message. Let's call it - the "Uncommon Sense" for any era.