Book Description
ability to 'get the right things done'. Usually this involves doing what
other people have overlooked, as well as avoiding what is unproductive.
He identifies five talents as essential to effectiveness, and these can be
learned; in fact, they must be learned just as scales must be mastered by
every piano student regardless of his natural gifts. Intelligence,
imagination and knowledge may all be wasted in an executive job without the
acquired habits of mind that convert these into results.
One of the talents is the management of time. Another is choosing what to
contribute to the particular organization. A third is knowing where and how
to apply your strength to best effect. Fourth is setting up the right
priorities. And all of them must be knitted together by effective
decision-making.
How these can be developed forms the main body of the book. The author
ranges widely through the annals of business and government to demonstrate
the distinctive skill of the executive. He turns familiar experience upside
down to see it in new perspective. The book is full of surprises, with its
fresh insights into old and seemingly trite situations.
