Expanding managerial contributions and leadership effectiveness in business roles

Peter Drucker: Making Strength Productive as an Effective Executive

In his chapter entitled "Making Strength Productive," the management guru tackles the myth of the so-called 'Renaissance Man' who can do everything well. Such people do not exist, he states. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. The secret to success is finding out how to use one's strengths to one's advantage, and downplaying weaknesses. Focus on your strengths, rather than working on overcoming your weaknesses. This is true on an individual as well as an organizational level. In other words, if you are McDonald's, focus on making burgers, not on healthy food. Very strong people often have very great weaknesses, and sometimes these must be overlooked, or compensated for, so that their strengths shine.

"What can a man [or woman] do" should be the primary focus of the organization (Drucker 2006: 75). One of the great advantages of larger organizations is that they can hide the weaknesses of workers to a greater degree. An accountant who is not a 'people person' might struggle in setting up his own business and generating new clients, but within a large organization, he can focus on what he does well instead. Business leaders must have the knowledge of how to allocate human resources more effectively. Their ability to read people well and use employees' specific intelligences vs. demand they be 'Renaissance Men' and focus on what they cannot do is the key to success (Drucker 2006: 76).

Impersonal bureaucracies and their focus on functionality rather than 'likeable' people enable things to get done and minimize favoritism, in Drucker's view. Structuring jobs to fit personalities likewise leads to role confusion and dilution of responsibilities to the point where members of the hierarchy are unsure what their responsibilities may be. If it seems impossible to fill the position, redesign the job, rather than seek out a genius. The reputed 'genius' may not exist. This is not to say that jobs should not stretch workers -- Drucker is adamant that they do, but they should stretch them in ways that serve the job in a necessary fashion vs. On improving the individual for improvement's sakes.

Some aspects of Drucker's philosophy can be seen reflected in modern-day corporate governance. At Google, for example, workers' entire days are organized so they do not need to divert their energies and focus from their tasks. There is free transportation (so workers can work virtually on their laptops rather than stew in traffic), free food (so workers do not have to worry about cooking meals) and even fitness classes so workers do not have to go to the gym. However, workers are also allowed a great deal of 'play time,' or unstructured time to work on their own projects, in the hope of generating new ideas for the company. Google also disdains corporate hierarchies and privileges. Workers eat side-by-side with CEOs at the cafeteria, and theoretically everyone with a good idea will be 'heard,' regardless of his or her official title. "For years Google has had a fairly informal product-development system. Ideas percolated upwards from Googlers without any formal process for senior managers to review them. Teams working on innovative stuff were generally kept small" (Creative tension, 2009, The Economist).