Managing Oneself...Life Lessons from Peter F. Drucker

I didn't know how little I knew and how incompetent I was until I came across Peter Drucker's article for the Harvard Business Review titled 'Managing Yourself'. We all want to live a good life. You might not want yours to be a 'big' one but at least I presume everyone would like to live right. For these reason I have done a breakdown of the subtopics Drucker discussed in this article and I will be pointing them out one after the other.

The first thing Drucker made mention of was 'Knowing Your Strengths'.

Many people think they know what they are good at. But do they really? More often than not, people know what they are NOT good at and one cannot build performance on weaknesses. Personal development is the first step to success. You cannot improve your life if you do not improve yourself. Also, you cannot add value to other people if you do not have value yourself. According to Drucker, the only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis. This implies that when you make a key decision, write down what you expect the result to be. After making the decision and carrying it out, make a comparison between the actual results of your decision and your set expectations. Are there any differences? Know your strength and put yourself where your strengths will produce results. After knowing your strengths, work on improving them. This is not to say you shouldn't work on your weaknesses.

Next, you need to discover where intellectual arrogance is hindering your progress. Intellectual arrogance refers to the situation where one person refuses to look outside his area of specialization just because it seems it has nothing to do with him. Just because you're an Engineer doesn't mean you shouldn't work on your people skills and just because you're a Human Resource Manager doesn't mean you shouldn't work on your accounting skills. Don't let what you don't know inhibit you. Strive to add knowledge in those areas that relate with what you are doing.

 

Finally, you need to work on and deal with your bad habits: the things that you do or fail to do that limit your effectiveness and performance. Such habits, according to Drucker will eventually show up in the feedback analysis that will help determine your strengths. Remember, ideas don't move mountains, actions do. It's not enough to have an idea of something. Work it out.