I read this as an MBA student and it helped a lot throughout my formative years in the business world. Reading it now (12 years later) as the owner of my own business makes me appreciate this classic even more. It's a great book to have at your side to make the most of the most valuable resource: time. As in Drucker's on Innovations and Entrepreneurship, its fundamental lessons are solid foundations to build a career/business on. Read it, learn it, live it and you will get more out of life.

As an author and an intellectual, the late Peter F. Drucker was a true business sage. Recognized as the father of modern management, Drucker forecast numerous pivotal trends, including decentralization, privatization and the development of the information society. He introduced the concept of the "knowledge worker," a term he employs widely in this fascinating book. His internal study of General Motors, Concept of the Corporation, greatly influenced how businesses conduct their affairs. Each Drucker book is a genuine business classic, including this one. getAbstract believes it will help you think productively about what you do. No one writes more intelligently or presciently on management and its functions than Drucker. All executives, even those who are already effective, will benefit from reading this informative, enlightening book.

Reading this book in the least will cause you analyze and self scrutinize the way you manage your time and efforts in your career. It is a wealth of information and should be slowly digested.

I have taught this book in a dozen university courses. It remains a classic for understanding effectiveness in organizations and specifically "how to manage oneself".

Even after 40 years, the book remains relevant. Most of my students, predominantly in their 20s, feel that the book is relevant for today. The examples are a bit dated and the use of the male pronoun throughout is awkward. Nonetheless those minor flaws are far outweighed with systematic writing and practical insight.

For Drucker, effectiveness is habit, a set of practices that can (and must) be learned. It is neither a skill, nor is it knowledge. Instead it is a set of simple practices which simply must be engaged in regularly. Drucker frees us from the idea that effective people are born, have a talent or temperament for effectiveness.

Effectiveness is "getting the right things done". This is very different from efficiency, which is merely "doing things right". Effectiveness is the key to the growth of the entrepreneurial economy.

The five habits of effectiveness are: 1) knowing where your time goes, 2) focus on outward contribution, 3) build on strengths, 4) concentrate on a few areas that produce outstanding results, and 5) make effective decisions.

Drucker walks through these habits in a highly engaging writing style. He explains and illustrates the habits and provides practical information based on his experience with dozens of executives over decades.

While many of Drucker's books are excellent, this is possibly the one that is most widely applicable for anyone who seeks to become more effective and to manage themselves for effectiveness.

You know you read the writing of great thinker when the line of text in front of you is simple and yet powerful. Peter Drucker writes like that. The Effective Executive is one of those books that wake up your intellect: simple, unpretentious, direct, based on experience and well practiced art of detecting underlying principles hiding behind our mundane tasks.

Effective managers, according to Peter, follow eight principles:
- Ask "what needs to be done?"
- Ask "what is right?"
- Develop action plans
- Take responsibility for decisions
- Take responsibility for communicating
- Focus on opportunity rather than problem
- Run productive meetings
- Think and say "we" rather than "I"

I like for instance how he describes the taking of responsibility for decisions: a decision has not been made until people know: the name of the person accountable for carrying it out, the deadline, the names of the people who will be affected by it, and the names of the people who will be informed. Simple, isn't it?

A penetrating observation is that in large organisations people tend to be absorbed by what happens inside its boundaries and by perfecting a process regardless of the outside world. The removal of the executive from the customer base is fatal in the long run.

Other thought that I liked is that the effective executive does not make decisions by consensus, but by what is right, even if the decision is not popular. The executive makes a few decisions, but powerful, rather than many razzle-dazzle decisions.

I have this book handy, so that when I have time, I choose to read randomly a page or two. It's like doing meditation. It is simple, elegant and very sharp. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject.