“There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.”
- Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker’s primary message is that effectiveness can be learned. Drucker puts forth the premise that the executive’s job is to be effective and that effectiveness can be learned. Achieving effectiveness is a matter of self-discipline and requires the executive to: record and analyze where his time goes, focus his vision on contribution, and make his strengths productive. He also emphasizes how knowledge workers are different. The growth of knowledge workers in society has resulted in a need for different ways of making them productive and fulfilled. Knowledge workers consider themselves professionals yet they are also employees and under orders. Drucker created the concept of Management By Objectives (MBO) – it is critical for people to look past the tasks that make up their day to the objectives or goals of their business. Focus on opportunities rather than problems and focus on contribution rather than on “work” being done. “Management by objectives works if you first think through your objectives. Ninety percent of the time you haven't.” The other key take-away if the concept of federal decentralization, a results-focused design that relies on companies being organized in a number of autonomous businesses. Activities within an autonomous business are organized on a functional principle. A core benefit of FD is that it frees top management for the top-management tasks.

Mike Kami provides a practical framework to apply many of Drucker’s theories, using a set of five tools, on Monday morning. The pyramid thinking approach allows a manager to take broad actions plans and focus them into concrete items. Kami’s views on brainstorming, while powerful, must be considered in light of the potential negative aspects of group think. Much research around this phenomenon has been conducted after Kami gave us Trigger Points. It’s important for the manager to take this into account, when applying Kami’s ideas. Kami stresses the need for an organization to continually adjust its goals and aspirations to match the reality. What reality is, can be discovered using SWOT or some other form of analysis. The eventual strategy must then be moved from the planning stage into action. The process may be iterative, and its important to include feedback and continually realign and reevaluate as the course of events occurs. This is especially important as competitors and consumers changes their preferences and directions. A fixed strategy will not bode well in a changing environment. A gap analysis is one powerful tool Kami advocates to achieve optimal (re)alignment of strategies. The ultimate goal, according to Kami, is action, effective and thoughtful action. He mentions in the excerpt from his book, and during his phone call, that one must continually challenge the status quo. Complacency is the enemy, and must be defeated. During the journey into successful action, it may serve management well to embrace the “misbehaving gorilla”, if the end result will be more worthwhile than a monkey can achieve.

In How To Make Your Management Style More Effective, Bill Reddin takes the work of Drucker and Kami, and adds the critical factor of management style. His 3-D model of effectiveness. The dimensions are: situation, roles/demands, and behavior. He demonstrates a clear connection between his 3D model, and increased effectiveness. Within each dimension there are a number of tools that each leader/organization will learn to use in a professional way. In the book, the management style diagnosis test gives managers the ability to evaluate their 4 effective styles vs. their 4 ineffective styles. Perhaps the most powerful aspect is that, depending on the situation and demands, a manager may need to switch their style. In The Output Oriented Organization, Reddin focuses more on how a manager can optimize the input-output equation. It moves us beyond style and behavior, to an output orientation, by providing specific methods, and exhibiting how managers can apply this within organizations.

Compare and Contrast

These three management Gurus are all trying to offer tolls and models to increase managerial and organizational effectiveness. Their approaches and areas of focus are different, however. Drucker key message is on the effectiveness of an individual, within an organization, and how the evolution of the knowledge worker must be used to achieve results. Drucker does not accept the notion of natural in innate effectives, and forces the reader to embrace the learnability of it. Ineffectiveness in any form can be put to an end, and this is something all managers must and can practice.

Kami focuses on Monday morning activities and action plans, which move the reader from the theories of effectiveness, and translates them into tangible actions. This is a large step forward, as without action – effective action – Drucker’s theories are nothing but words. However, Kami ignores the element of style and situation, which Reddin exposes us to. While Kami’s work is not lost on his audience, it is made even more powerful by incorporating Reddin’s work. By including personality traits and how these work within the dynamics of a situation, the effective manager can learn to adjust and (re)align his actions to best suit the needs of the moment. This has the affect of enhancing the applicability and success rates of any actions a manager embarks on. Essentially, the model of effectiveness has been expanded and is now more realistic in real business life.

It’s undisputed that the collective works of Drucker, Kami and Reddin provided the business and management world with pioneering frameworks and models to achieve effectiveness. Drucker, being amongst the first to focus on managerial effectiveness, created much of the foundation upon which scholars such as Kami and Reddin were able to build upon. Kami moved us to the application of these models, and Reddin gave us tools and expanded the theories to include more personal aspects.

Relevance Today

It is widely accepted that – and the evidence supports this – the origin for virtually all ideas come from the Generative Sciences. Who are the guru’s gurus? This so-called layer 1 of the Rational Choice Model, includes the disciplines of analytical philosophy, artificial intelligence, hermeneutics, and mathematics. Below this layer are the basic sciences: Economists, Psychologists, Sociologists, and Anthropologists. Then comes the third layer of Applied Sciences: Finance, Accounting, Strategy, Marketing, OB, and OM. The final layer is knowledge in action. Now, the question that begs to be asked is, where do Drucker, Kami, and Reddin fit? What was the inspiration of their teachings? Each layer filters the information from the layer above it, and applies it to ‘their problems’. In other words, the economist applies mathematical laws and principles to those issues relevant to him, and so on. The movement from layer 1 to 2 filters on methods. From 2 to 3 filters on perceived problems. Three to 4 filters on actual problems. The key is that virtually all knowledge in some way originated in layer 1.

The three management Gurus would most aptly fit into the final layer. However, their intuitive insights may transcend other layers. It’s important to note that these filters introduce a bias – only some information gets through, the ones ‘selected’ by each layer, not individuals. Did Drucker, Kami, and Reddin filter this information, or were they also generative? Cutting out the middle layers, and going directly to the foundation (generative) sciences has obvious merits. In the process of developing the type of intuitive knowledge these management Gurus have, their language is influenced by experience.

This mix of generation, inclusion of experience, both personal and vicarious, and some degree of filtration, creates unique management effectiveness models. The models are ever-evolving, as more scholars and managers apply them. Time changes, as do business practices. People, however, change much slower. Man’s ability to adapt, learn, and re-learn, makes these management theories and frameworks, extremely powerful and applicable tools, even today. If we have a model for something, then we can recognize why a certain behavior did not work, and we can change it. As soon as something is made explicit, then we understand it clearly, and there is tremendous managerial use for this.