Great ideas of the great thinker in the business world

One of the most influential theorists of XX century management Peter Drucker left behind a rich heritage. Here are 10 key installations that will allow many to change their perception of the business:

1. Results are achieved through the use of enabling opportunities, and not by solving problems.

If you focus on problems, at best, keep the existing status quo. If you focus your attention on opportunities, you will achieve great results, get something beyond what you already have. Ask yourself: Do you spend most of your time extinguishing fires and put much of the effort into problem solving - or do you focus on exploring new opportunities?

1. There is nothing more useless than efficiently doing work that you do not need at all.

The effective use of your time is the ability to do the right things, not things correctly. Before trying to optimize your schedule, look first that you can cross out it completely. From what you have to deal with every day, what can be ruled out altogether, and what - to delegate to others? If you stop doing it right now, how much will it affect your life?

1. Most of what we call management is to make it hard for people to do their job

Each management system that you create should facilitate the work of your employees, and not complicate it. If you continue to insist that your employees solve questions by your methods, maybe you have chosen the wrong way. Ask yourself: What order of business you insist on is rarely performed by employees? Perhaps it makes sense to revise them, even if they seem necessary to you?

1. The goal of marketing is to learn and understand the customer so that the product or service exactly meets its requirements and sells themselves.

According to the generally accepted opinion, marketing exists to tell people about our products and? services. Drucker reminds us that marketing, in fact, is a process of gaining knowledge about your customers - what are their fears, disappointments, aspirations - so that your product or service meets their needs so that they want to buy them without your requests and beliefs. Be honest: Do you study the needs of your potential customers before creating a product - or do you first create a product, and then hope that people will buy it?

1. It is necessary to constantly improve, build up, check in action your knowledge and skills, otherwise they will go away.

If you do not constantly improve your skills and do not use your knowledge in a certain field, you lose them. If you think that you can get an idea of ​​marketing in a business school, and then never turn to this knowledge, then there is no benefit in such training. In which areas did you stop improving your knowledge? What can you do today to restore them?

1. The results depend on marketing and new technologies, everything else is costs.

Innovations give birth to products and solutions, and marketing sells them. In addition to these two components, everything else in your business is costs - which means you do not have to spend a lot of time on them; Reduce time costs as much as possible. If not, you will continue to invest in something that will not bring much benefit. What business units that you pay a lot of attention to are not priority? Can you move them to the background?

1. Entrepreneurship can be risky because many so-called entrepreneurs do not have sufficient competence.

So many people just want to "start their own business" - they take a loan, open a bakery, and a year later go bankrupt. Then they attribute their failure to bad luck or a bad economy. And what do you think about it? What if you spent more time grinding the ax before you tried to cut down the tree? What if you spent a month singing Eric Rees's "Lean Startup" and Howard Schultz's "Pour Your Heart Into It"? You can avoid some of the risks (not all) with one tool: reading. Do you think that you give reading the proper amount of time? Mark Cuban says that he spends three hours a day on the book - and you?

1. If the leader allows the event to determine what to do, what to work on, and what should be taken seriously, then all of its efforts will eventually be wasted on trifles.

Successful people do not just appear at work, answer phones, and extinguish fires. They are concentrated every day on the battle plan for the consumer. They do not allow employees to freely come to their office and shift their problems to them. A successful day begins with a strategically important decision that you are going to play on the offensive, not on the defensive. Do you control your work schedule? Or do you spend your working hours solving other people's problems?

1. The three most charismatic leaders of the 20th century caused more suffering to humanity than any other trio in history: Hitler, Stalin and Mao. It's not about the charisma of the leader. Its mission is important.

There is no "better kind" of the leader. There are sociable leaders such as Richard Branson, or restrained, like Tony Shay. Both led their companies to unimaginable success. What makes a person a leader? It is not at all how enthusiastic he is from the rostrum. A person makes a leader his vision, an idea, a dream - and how he is able to infect other people with his goal in order to achieve success together. What is your mission? Do you give her as much attention as she deserves?

1. In order to rise from a level of incompetence to a satisfactory level, it is necessary to spend much more effort and labor than on a jump from first-class performance to irreproachable work.

It is easier to go from good to great than from bad to good. So focus on developing your talents in what you have succeeded, rather than strive to be a "fully developed" personality. It's easy to replace a person who can do a little bit of everything. However, the one who is considered the best in his work remains indispensable. In which areas have you already succeeded well? What can you do to make these things your talent?