The Effective Executive

Randy Wootton could be the most articulate and intelligent chief executive I’ve ever encountered. The three-time CEO now leading Maxio’s growth engine was the perfect candidate to discuss Peter Drucker’s The Effective Executive, the best management book ever written. Is he still relevant? Should business readers prioritize his best writing? And what makes his earlier books stand out? Those questions are addressed when discussing time management, knowledge workers, and decision-making.

Episode Highlights

1. Why study Drucker today, and who should read him?
2. Will the younger generation give up on Drucker?
3. The ‘original’ source material for management.
4. Drucker’s 8 practices for effective executives.
5. Who is an executive, and who is the book for?
6. Knowledge workers can never be managed.
7. Opportunities vs. problems.
8. The decision-making abilities of Theodore Vail.
9. Simple but powerful time management concepts.
10. Strengths vs. weaknesses.

A DECISION IS A JUDGMENT. It is a choice between alternatives. It is rarely a choice between right and wrong. It is at best a choice between “almost right” and “probably wrong”—but much more often a choice between two courses of action neither of which is provably more nearly right than the other.

Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive

Who is Randy Wootton?

Randy Wootton is the Chief Executive officer at Maxio. He also served in that same capacity at RocketFuel & Percolate. Before that, he significantly augmented revenue growth at Microsoft and Salesforce in marketing, sales, and operations roles. Randy is also the host of the popular podcast, The SaaS Experts Voices.

Drucker’s Eight Effective Practices

I’m betting many business readers skip introductions when reading nonfiction books. In the case of The Effective Executive, his entire introduction is the best I’ve ever read in any management book. In the early pages, he provides the eight characteristics of effective executives. I never tire of rereading this list and I share it frequently with managers.

• They asked, “What needs to be done?”
• They asked, “What is right for the enterprise?”
• The developed action plans.
• They took responsibility for decisions.
• They took responsibility for communicating.
• They were focused on opportunities rather than problems.
• They ran productive meetings.
• They thought and said “we” rather than “I.”

Effectiveness, in other words, is a habit; that is, a complex of practices. And practices can always be learned. Practices are simple, deceptively so; even a seven-year-old has no difficulty in understanding a practice.

Peter Drucker, The Effective Executive

Books Mentioned on the Show

• The Iliad
• The First 90 Days by Michael Watkins
• Think Remarkable by Guy Kawasaki
• Dune
• Play Bigger: How Pirates, Dreamers, and Innovators Create and Dominate Markets by Ramadan, Peterson, Lochhead, and Maney
• Playing to Win by Lafley and Martin
• Execution by Larry Bossidy

Episode Pairings

Image Credits: Entrance to Claremont Graduate University’s campus by: see here. For Peter Drucker: see here by Isaac Mao.