1. Only from strength

    Most people think they know what they are good at. They are usually wrong. More often, people know what they are not good at—and even then more people are wrong than right. And yet, a person can perform only from strength. One cannot build performance on weaknesses, let alone on something one cannot do at all.

  2. Feedback analysis

    The only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis. Whenever you make a key decision or take a key action, write down what you expect will happen. Nine or 12 months later, compare the actual results with your expectations.

  3. Taking pride in ignorance

    First and foremost, concentrate on your strengths. Put yourself where your strengths can produce results.

    Second, work on improving your strengths.

    Third, discover where your intellectual arrogance is causing disabling ignorance and overcome it...First-rate engineers, for instance, tend to take pride in not knowing anything about people. Human resources professionals, by contrast, often pride themselves on their ignorance of elementary accounting or of quantitative methods altogether. But taking pride in such ignorance is self-defeating. Go to work on acquiring the skills and knowledge you need to fully realize your strengths.

  4. But bulldozers move mountains

    A planner may find that his beautiful plans fail because he does not follow through on them. Like so many brilliant people, he believes that ideas move mountains. But bulldozers move mountains; ideas show where the bulldozers should go to work.

  5. Waste as little effort as possible on low competence

    One should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence. It takes far more energy and work to improve from incompetence to mediocrity than it takes to improve from first-rate performance to excellence.

    1. ​95%-ile isn't that good​
    2. ​On Talent​

    One of Drucker's few recommendations that seems empirically wrong. It's easy to be better than most people, not so easy to be among the best. Dan Luu's linked article puts this better than I could. Drucker continues though:

    Most teachers and most organizations concentrate on making incompetent performers into mediocre ones. Energy, resources, and time should go instead to making a competent person into a star performer.

    Applied to a pool of talent, this seems more useful. Steve Jobs, with no patience for B-players, I'm sure would agree.

  6. How do I perform?

    For knowledge workers, How do I perform? may be an even more important question than What are my strengths?.

    A few common personality traits usually determine how a person performs:

    • Am I a reader or a listener?
    • How do I learn? Writing? Taking notes? Doing? Talking?
    • Do I work well with people, or am I a loner? And if I do work well with people, in what relationship?
    • Do I produce results as a decision maker or as an adviser?
    • Do I perform well under stress, or do I need a highly structured and predictable environment?
    • Do I work best in a big organization or a small one?

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  7. To improve the way you perform

    Do not try to change yourself—you are unlikely to succeed. But work hard to improve the way you perform. And try not to take on work you cannot perform or will only perform poorly.

  8. The mirror test

    In the early years of this century, the most highly respected diplomat of all the great powers was the german ambassador in London. He was clearly destined for great things...yet in 1906 he abruptly resigned rather than preside over a dinner given by the diplomatic corps for Edward VII. The king was a notorious womanizer and made it clear what kind of dinner he wanted. The ambassador is reported to have said, "I refuse to see a pimp in the mirror in the morning when I shave."

    This is the mirror test. Ethics requires that you ask yourself, What kind of person do I want to see in the mirror in the morning?

  9. Your organization's values

    Organizations, like people, have values. To be effective in an organization, a person's values must be compatible with the organization's values. They do not need to be the same, but they must be close enough to coexist. Otherwise, the person will not only be frustrated but also will not produce results.

  10. Values vs. strengths

    There is sometimes a conflict between a person's values and his or her strengths. What one does well – even very well and successfully – may not fit with one's value system. In that case, the work may not appear to be worth devoting one's lift to (or even a substantial portion thereof).

    Values are and should be the ultimate test.

  11. The best-laid plans

    It is rarely possible – or even particularly fruitful – to look too far ahead. A plan can usually cover no more than 18 months and still be reasonably clear and specific. So the question is most cases should be, Where and how can I achieve results that will make a difference within the next year and a half?

    The answer must balance several things. First, the results should be hard to achieve...but also, they should be within reach. Second, the results should be meaningful. Finally, results should be visible and, if at all possible, measurable.

  12. The second half of your life

    Today, most work is knowledge work, and knowledge workers are not "finished" after 40 years on the job, they are merely bored.

    There are three ways to develop a second career. The first is to actually start one. The second is to develop a parallel career. Finally, there are the social entrepreneurs.

    There is one prerequisite for managing the second half of your life: You must begin long before you enter it. If one does not begin to volunteer before one is 40 or so, one will not volunteer once past 60.

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