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What’s your favorite resource on Drucker? I love re-reading his book “The Effective Executive”.

+1 for “The Effective Executive”. Excellent reading for managers and individual contributors alike.

Great book. I also recommend "The Effective Executive."

The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker is another good book to consider.

You missed The Effective Executive book on that list

The Effective Executive is fantastic -- not just for C-level execs, but anyone who has to "execute" every day using only their own intelligence and experience (read: anyone working in software or business).

Peter Drucker echoes this sentiment in "The Effective Executive" when he says that one of the realities the executive must learn to deal with is the fact that he is "within the organization" (In this case Silicon Valley). I totally agree.

All three are great books. The Effective Executive is very old school, but timeless. The Goal helps me understand some of the thinking of Amazon.

This is all pretty technocratic. I would recommend Peter Drucker's "The Effective Executive" for some useful thoughts on organizing your day and being more effective at work.

Definitely this.

The Effective Executive (Drucker) has been by far the best book on management I've ever read. No fluff. http://www.amazon.com/The-Effective-Executive-Definitive-Har...

The old expression "don't bite more than you can chew" epitomizes this. Don't start what you can't finish. It's in deciding what to start and what not to start that you'll make progress.

Read "The Effective Executive" by Peter Drucker, which addresses this in greater detail.

The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker is a classic starter manual

Nothing new if you've read The Effective executive by Peter Drucker. Published 1966, for what it's worth.

Pretty good overview, although I was aghast when I saw that The Mythical Man Month was missing from the book list. The Effective Executive is also a timeless classic that's useful to anyone who manages anything.

I'm currently finishing up the last novel in Banks' Culture series. I can recommend them.

In nonfiction land, I'm almost done with Drucker's The Effective Executive, which I think I got from an HN comment rec.

Yuval Harari - Sapiens

Yuval Harari - Homo Deus

Yuval Harari - 21 lessons for the 21st century

Frank Schätzing - The Swarm

Peter Drucker - The Effective Executive

Stephen Hawking - A Short History Of Time

Yep! I've read The Effective Executive. One of my big motivators for writing the book was that there were all these great ideas that were encapsulated in business books or personal improvement books, and very few books that would tie them back to engineering. That's the gap I wanted to fill.

Last: The C Programming Language - Kernighan & Ritchie

Current: The Effective Executive - Peter Drucker

An acquaintance recommended Peter Drucker's "The Effective Executive" as a first book to read about management. I found it very interesting and it changed my outlook on the value of tracking time, focusing on strengths and what contribution matters. (I am not a manager myself.)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Effective-Executive-Classic-Drucker...

The best book I have read [out of probably 100+] on management is "The Effective Executive" by Drucker.

The book is pretty thin and was written mid-last century but still holds it's value versus all else we have now.

In addition to providing a framework and mindset on how to become an effective executive, the book also explains why/how it's possible to have shitty people be great CEOs and vice versa - because being effective has nothing to do with personal qualities [nice, kind, mean, etc].

I recommend reading this book to anyone who would like to become a better executive or who would like to better understand the other side of truth.

The fact that this idea is deemed worthy of an article in the Economist, and then hits the front page of HN is, IMHO, a sad statement on the current quality of thinking about how to run companies. It's hard for me to summon anything but 'duh' in response to the headline. For intelligent commentary, give me Peter Drucker's "The Effective Executive".

You might want to check out 'The Effective Executive' by Peter Drucker. It sounds like you are in the perfect place in your career to read that book. It's a quick read and a short book.

Let me as you a question. A waitress comes over to you at a Diner as says "What can I get for you?". If you tell her, are you 'ordering her around?

Maybe try to reframe your perspective a bit on your subordinates. They probably depend on you to give them work to do right?

You said something interesting there; your 'bulldoze' comment. Without discounting the fact that there are bulldozers out there, a lot of the time that is more akin to just having confidence that once you hit a roadblock you'll 'figure it out because you always do'.

One thing in that Drucker book that always stands out to me is he says something like: You are in charge to make the hard decisions. The easy decisions make themselves.

Recently I have been relying on two good sources for leadership:

- Book: The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker: I think this is an excellent book to teach the part of the brain that wants to execute to think more strategically and concentrate on the leadership side.

- Podcast: Modern CTO: This podcast has lots of interviews CTO's from all kinds of companies. It's pretty casual and entertaining but also seems to always motivate me to be a better leader.

I do agree that GTD helps to start learning to keep track of all the moving parts in our lives. That's the micromanagement part. Many people I know do not have a clue how to tackle this part of their lives (some of them are excellent at getting results, at macro managing their lives, but if you look at the details of their lives: there is a total mess)

Re 80/20 (Preto Principle): There is also a book from Richard Koch named "The 80/20 principle" that'll help to see how some activities will have a huge leverage and others will contribute almost nothing to our big goals. Be it that we read a book (and try to focus on the nuggets instead of reading every chapter) or trying to do every item on our lists vs selecting only one or two for a day and blocking a huge amount of time to get this activity done.

Also Peter Drucker has written a great book about this topic: "The Effective Executive".

I keep reminding myself that in life things are not distributed equally. Wealth, intelligence, insightful books, the contribution of activities to my goals, etc

My top priority books:

    Software Requirements - Karl Wiegers

    Programming TypeScript - Boris Cherny

    Associate Cloud Engineer Study - Dan Sullivan

    Design Patterns - Gang of Four

    Refactoring - Kent Beck, Martin Fowler

    Programming Pearls - Jon Bentley

    Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture - Martin Fowler

    The Pragmatic Programmer - David Thomas, Andrew Hunt

    CSS: The Definitive Guide - Eric A. Meyer, Estelle Weyl

    Working Effectively with Legacy Code - Michael Feathers

    Head First Design Patterns - Eric Freeman, Bert Bates

    Code Complete - Steve McConnell

    Peopleware - Tim Lister, Tom DeMarco

    Clean Code - Robert C. Martin

    The Clean Coder - Robert C. Martin

    Clean Architecture - Robert C. Martin

    Don't Make Me Think - Steve Krug

    Functional Design Patterns for Express.js - Jonathan Lee Martin

    The Surrender Experiment - Michael A. Singer

The best books I've ever read:

    Principles - Ray Dalio

    The Power of Now - Eckhart Tolle

    The Effective Executive - Peter F. Drucker

    Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill

    Extreme Ownership - Jocko Willink, Leif Babin

    Influence - Robert B. Cialdini

    The Startup Way - Eric Ries

    The Lean Startup - Eric Ries

    12 Rules for Life - Jordan B. Peterson

    Measure What Matters - John Doerr, Larry Page

    The Fish That Ate the Whale - Rich Cohen

    The E-Myth Revisited - Michael E. Gerber

    The Score Takes Care of Itself - Bill Walsh, Steve Jamison, Craig Walsh

    Management - Peter F. Drucker

    Thinking in Systems - Donella H. Meadows

    Blue Ocean Strategy - W. Chan Kim, Renee Mauborgne

Learning to effectively communicate with others is the single most important skill you can learn. It will help you improve your relationships with others, clearly communicate your own ideas, and address areas for improvement in ideas and others in a way that is constructive. There's been quite a few great books on this thread already. Here's some I haven't seen.

* The Ultimate Sales Machine - Chet Holmes - good even if you're not in sales

* The Effective Executive - Peter Drucker - Great book overall

* The Phoenix Project - good for understanding project flows and silos.

* Thinking in Systems - good for how to set up processes so that even if you step away the job still gets done. Essential for getting promoted, no one can promote you if you're impossible to replace.

A basic podcast that I’ve found useful is Manager Tooks. It contains a lot of good habits and tools. Listen to it on your commute for a month or two and you’ll get the gist of it.

The Effective Executive by Drucker is a great intro to leadership. He puts the role in the context of getting results.

A couple other thoughts:

1 - Communicate the same message over and over. Do it verbally and in writing.

2 - Have weekly 1 on 1s with all your reports. They should own the first 20 mins. You own the last 10. Take notes.

3 - Make sure Meeting notes go out for every meeting.

4 - Talent is your job, not HRs. It’s up to you to hire and train the good, and nudge out the bad.

5 - Assume you only get your best people for 1-2 years. Plan for succession.

6 - A good relationship is “My top 20% will work for me again” and not “Everyone is my buddy”

7 - Be careful about off work socializing. If you go to a happy hour with subordinates, disappear after the first round. Don’t make these events mandatory.

8 - Keep performance discussions between you and your reports. Don’t belittle anyone to their peers.

I just finished Peter Druker's classic "The Effective Executive" and he really strongly emphasizes the need to throw out the old:

"The first rule for the concentration of executive efforts is to slough off the past that has ceased to be productive. Effective executives periodically review their work programs—and those of their associates—and ask: 'If we did not already do this, would we go into it now?' And unless the answer is an unconditional 'Yes,' they drop the activity or curtail it sharply."

Drucker, Peter F.. The Effective Executive (Harperbusiness Essentials) (p. 115).

So many words about an editor as a CEO? I would like to cite Peter Drucker‘s „The Effective Executive“:

„Effective executives focus on outward contribution. They gear their efforts to results rather than to work. They start out with the question, “What results are expected of me?” rather than with the work to be done, let alone with its techniques and tools.“

I am guilty myself falling in love with tools (Emacs, vim, iTerm, Notability, Evernote and whatnot). But I founded and led companies myself. The time budget of a manager is extremely tight. You need to cut back on those things that do not contribute to your key result areas.

On the other hand you have someone like Stephen Covey who reminds us to sharpen the saw to get better results (i.e. invest time in the infrastructure as well).

But I try to imagine an Elon Musk writing a blog post about how to use Vim effectively.

The onramp for finance is accounting. There is no other right answer. This is also essential for general business administration.

Accounting is a huge topic; being able to read financial statements is a good, first tangible exercise.

Best book I have found for this is Thomas Ittelson, Financial Statements.

Using double-entry accounting methods for your own financials with a tool like Beancount is super helpful from a practice perspective, and appealing to an engineering mind:

http://furius.ca/beancount/

"Being able to level with CEOs and CFOs" is less about administering a business and more about being able to communicate with executives. This is essential for all technical people, whether or not they have management or executive ambitions themselves.

This also is a huge topic, I would suggest starting with concise definitions of what managing is, and what being an executive is about. When you understand the concerns of the people you are communicating with, you can do so more efficiently and effectively.

From a mindset perspective I would start with Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive, and since everyone is their own CEO, his book Managing Oneself is very valuable.

These are all classic texts, still valuable and relevant, as these topics are as old as the hills.

Good luck.

I've found that a rough version of GTD has really helped me focus on "getting things done" when I feel i need structure because I am pulled in many different directions.

Don't worry about all the self help material, it really is a simple workflow:

https://goo.gl/images/R7ciME

From an overall "how to think and act effectively" philosophy, the original is still the best IMO: "The Effective Executive", by Peter Drucker, written in 1967. It contains very simple ideas, but I've found them to be tremendous life lessons on how to do the right things, rather than just doing things right.

The Now Habit really helped me let go of procrastination being my fault, and just seeing it as a systemic side effect of my approach. Brilliant book, on the order of GTD or the Effective Executive in terms of how true everything has held up over the years. Recommend reading it for anyone, any single tip from the book is likely to be worth your time.

However, the best for addressing procrastination for me was a coach. They really worked through things with me to give names to the bad habits I'd developed, and the tools to recognize emotions as they occurred. It reminds me a lot of the "noting" practice in meditation.

For example:

"foldering" - once, I decided that I needed to make folders and put all the documents I needed to create & review in various states (e.g. incubation, pre-review writing, published for review, reviewed, complete, etc). This is not effective, as what I needed to know was "what should I work on today" or "how aligned are my projects with the business". Instead I was making sure all my documents and folders were right. Now whenever I do this over-organization-as-avoidance, the word "foldering" occurs to me before I even notice I'm doing it.

One of the hardest things is that the best coaches come through recommendations from others. If you don't have a social or professional network where people have worked with coaches, it can become very hard to find a good one. Many friends according to their instagrams are "coaches" now who have never been near a stadium.

These are a few of the ones I read this year and that the average HN reader would also probably enjoy (links are to my blog):

* Why We Sleep: https://j11g.com/2019/05/31/why-we-sleep-matthew-walker/

* The Effective Executive: https://j11g.com/2019/03/18/the-effective-executive-peter-dr...

* High Output Management: https://j11g.com/2019/01/29/high-output-management-andrew-s-...

* Bad Blood: https://j11g.com/2019/01/21/bad-blood-john-carreyrou/

* The 7 Habits (I reread this after a long time and it still holds up!) https://j11g.com/2019/09/30/the-7-habits-of-highly-effective...

* A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again – David Foster Wallace (This is just an amazing book and became one of my all time favorites) https://j11g.com/2019/08/08/a-supposedly-fun-thing-ill-never...

> Seems like a bit of a tail wagging the dog situation. How do we know the more relaxed/organized schedule leads to success, and not that success leads to a more relaxed/organized schedule?

That's a facile rhetorical question. You could similarly ask, "How do we know that good food and exercise lead to healthy human beings, rather than that already-healthy human beings have access to good food and exercise?" The answer, of course, would be research. All the students were working the same amount. Their work habits were different.

Furthermore, although I can understand why success might lead to more relaxation (for instance, by making students feel less stressed about their future prospects), I don't see how it would lead to more discipline or a focus on deliberate practice. Successful people tend to do the same things they've always done, for the obvious reason that they are successful doing it. If they were undisciplined and successful, what motivation would they have for becoming disciplined?

In addition to the data and the research (and Newport has illuminated many more results than this one), two anecdotes come to mind. The first is from The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker, where he brings forward some examples:

> [Consider] Harry Hopkins, President Roosevelt’s confidential adviser in World War II. A dying, indeed almost a dead man for whom every step was torment, he could only work a few hours every other day or so. This forced him to cut out everything but truly vital matters. He did not lose effectiveness thereby; on the contrary, he became, as Churchill called him once, “Lord Heart of the Matter” and accomplished more than anyone else in wartime Washington.

The second is from my personal life. Having children forced me to concentrate my efforts and create a much more disciplined work life. I'm more successful and focused than ever. Although this is just an anecdote, this phenomenon is commonly reported by other people in demanding technical or executive roles.

His 1973 tome Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices, The Essential Drucker, and Managing for Results are three I find myself opening regularly.

The Effective Executive is great as well. It's hard to narrow down because he was such a prolific writer. Recommendations are also hard because you've got to meet the reader where they are. I picked up and put down Drucker early in my career. Years later, the same pages burst with insight when I read them.

"I often saw the best practices of general management fail startups."

Even a quick reading Peter Drucker offers a lot of wisdom for managing a startup.

"The Effective Executive" and "Innovation and Entrepreneurship" have a lot to say about managing time, priorities, and posteriorities (what you are NOT going to do or organized abandonment) that are highly relevant to getting a startup off the ground and growing.

For a shorter piece that talks about value creation and the need to focus outside of the corporation to create value, his "The Next Information Revolution" (published in ASAP but available here http://www.versaggi.net/ecommerce/articles/drucker-inforevol... ) is worth a quick read.