During this semester and as a very recent team-preneur I made the decision that most of my reads for this spring will be on leadership and team dynamics since that will help guide me into being a more efficient team member to Crevio, and that is why for this essay I chose my read to be “The Effective Executive” by Peter F. Drucker and “The decision book” by Mikael Krogerus, there were many intakes that I have caught on from this book. Starting with Effectiveness.

Effectiveness as a skill that can be learned:

One thing each influential team leaders have in common is that they get the right things done, that’s why the first lesson in becoming effective is to focus on your own progress so you can lead by example. Effective executives differ widely in their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, values, and beliefs. To unlock the effectiveness level no special gifts or special training are needed; checking your results and expectations against your performance is the only crucial part to pay attention to. Additionally, do not forget to seek feedback from others in performance reviews, remember that the way others see you is not the same as how you see yourself. Getting outside input is vital to improving your process so that you can be the best example to your team. When people see that they can share their insights and that you will use them, they will trust you more.

Manage yourself and your time: learn how to make decisions no matter what others’ criticism is.

• In most cases, being unable to make yourself effective at your own job makes it impossible to manage your associates and subordinates, management is largely by example and you are setting the wrong example to follow.
• Time is our most precious resource, yet many leaders take it for granted not keeping in mind that Nothing else distinguishes effective leaders as much as their loving and valuing care of time. One must work systematically at managing the little of their time that can be brought under control.

As a leader, you have a lot of decisions to make and these decisions may directly affect those who don’t necessarily agree with them. People may still not share the same vision as you, but you can have the confidence that you made the right choice. Ask yourself:

• What would the outcome be if I didn’t do anything?
• Would the most likely result of the decision greatly outweigh the costs and risks?

If the answer to the second question is “no,” don’t proceed with making the choice. Making decisions is one thing, but the execution of choices already made is even harder but no matter what the decision is or how difficult it may be, as an effective leader you must learn to follow through and take full responsibility for the outcomes. no matter how much criticism you receive.

The five elements of decision making.

The first question to start with is: “is this a generic situation or an exception?”, is the occurrence a unique event that needs to be dealt with as such? then clear “boundary conditions” as to what the decision must accomplish. After that, comes the part where the problem must be defined, so we must ask ourselves what we are dealing with”. What will fully satisfy the specifications before attention is given to the promised compromises? Choose the right decision rather than the ’acceptable one’. Great! now we have a decision in hand, the time has come to put in action to make this happen so let’s ask ourselves: What kind of action is needed and from whom? Who needs to know about this and why? Finally, we must test out the decision that we’ve come up with, how valid and effective is it? Feedback must be built into the decision to provide continuous testing.

Look closer at the strengths of your people.

Peter F. Drucker talks in his book about how he didn’t ever feel truly confident until he worked on improving his strengths, not weaknesses. Effective leaders do not build on weaknesses, they start with the things they can do, and they build on strengths; their own strengths, and the strengths of all their team members. As an executive, you have the power to give this same kind of confidence-boosting power to your team members. All you must do is play to their strengths. You should only hand responsibility for a task to someone when they are better at it than you and ensure they are equipped with the resources and the time available to handle it.

Everybody has a boss, and sometimes it’s necessary to manage them also. One’s attitude should be one of “how can I do the best job possible?” Seeing your work in this light will make sure that your team leader doesn’t have to exhaust their time managing you. And it will also improve your opportunities within the team.

The most powerful question in decision making

Questions are keys to unlocking insight. And while I believe in the existence of generically useful questions, I do try to collect questions that work in many situations. One question that is very simple, incisive, and easy yet very useful is ‘How are you thinking about that? Just the act of asking ‘how’ a person thinks requires an answer several layers deeper than the related questions of ‘what’ or even ‘why’ they think something. It can uncover hidden assumptions and insights that add real value to the process of decision-making.

And I think that most of us are used to asking: ‘What do you think about this?’ instead of ”How” Asking someone what they think evokes a view. The task is then to work out how useful that view is likely to be. The person then starts wondering: Do I know the subject well? Am I sighted on the likely consequences of this decision? Is my view likely to be partial in some unhelpful way? How should my view be weighed next to others?

Asking ‘what’ people think is helpful and pretty common, yet it still leaves a lot of work. After getting an answer from the person and hearing about their views, there comes the next part of asking: ‘Why do you think that?’

Answers to this question shed light on justification. They help gain a sense of their understanding, perspective, concerns, experience, and other evidence useful to them in explaining their opinions. This helps the decision-maker see where the person is coming from. It further brings out strengths and weaknesses in their argument. But asking ‘why’ can also draw out a defensive response. Justifying a view is very different from exploring it. Our desire to be seen as smart and consistent and pleasant is a wonderful instinct, but it can lead to us avoiding the moldy corners of our reasoning.

References 

The effective executive: The defenitive guide to getting the right things done. F. Drucker P. Harperbusiness essentials Revised edition (January 3, 2006).

The Decision Book: 50 Models for Strategic Thinking. Krogerus M. Tschäppeler R. W. W. Norton & Company; 1st edition (January 30, 2012).