In italic my notes and thoughts.
What are my strengths?
We need to know our strengths in order to know where we belong.
The only way to discover your strengths is through feedback analysis. Whenever you make a key decision or take a key action, write down what you expect will happen. Then compare the actual results with your expectations.
First, concentrate on your strengths. Put yourself where your strengths can produce results. Second, work on improving your strengths. Third, discover where your intellectual arrogance is causing disabling ignorance and overcome it.
Work on acquiring the skills and knowledge you need to fully realize your strengths. (continuous improvement)
Remedy your bad habits. (We need to reflect to identify what are our bad habits. Is a bad habit by itself? Do it produce anything (pleasure, relax, energy) that can be beneficial? I think you have to take conscious decisions about your habits. It's not bad to watch films, if you consciously choose it; it is bad when it produces frustrations and you feel bad for do it).
Like so many brilliant people, he believes that ideas move mountains. But bulldozers move mountains; ideas show where the bulldozers should go to work. (I think this is bright, and will help to understand we need both)
Manners are the lubricant oil of an organization. Two moving bodies in contact with each other create friction. (We are social animals, and we work with other social animals. Good relations are needed, and is easier to have great relations if are based in good manners.)
One should waste as little effort as possible on improving areas of low competence. (Not totally sure about it. I think there is a great value in not be an expert and be really versatile. Do that means that versatility is your strength and you should encourage it? mmmm, interesting).
How do I perform?
Don't try to change yourself; focus on potentiate yourself.
- Am I a reader or a listener?
- How do I learn? (Probably Drucker here is a bit simplistic and you learn in a combination of different ways, but is important to know with one impacts you more.)
- by writing?
- by doing?
- by hearing yourself?
- or by watching?
- Do I work well with people, or am I a loner? in what relationship?
- Am I a decision maker or an adviser?
- The top spot requires a decision maker.
- Do I perform well under stress, or do I need a highly structured and predictable environment?
- Do I work best in a big organization or a small one?
What are my values?
Do the "mirror test". What kind of person do I want to see in the mirror in the morning? Drucker specially focus that not in ethics, but I think this, and ethics, is the most important take away and a way of life. You should pass everyday the mirror test.
Where do I belong?
By mid twenties, you should know the answers to the three questions before. And you should be able to decide where you belong. And where you do not belong. Maybe Drucker takes mid twenties from previous generations' perspectives. I think today mid twenties is a bit early for the majority of people.
Successful careers are not planned. They develop when people are prepared for opportunities because they know their strengths, their method of work, and values. Ramon Nogueras have a talk about luck and luck as behavioural patterns and how be prepare and open to try things and to meet people increase opportunities and "luck".
Where should I contribute?
Knowledge workers have to learn to ask a question that has not been asked before: What should my contribution be?
Where and how can I achieve results that will make a difference within the next year and a half?
The results should be hard to achieve and meaningful. They should make a difference. From this will come a course of action: what to do, where and how to start, and what goals and deadlines to set.
Responsibility for relationships
Managing yourself requires taking responsibility for relationships. First, accept the fact that other people are as much individuals as you yourself are. Understand the people you work with and depend on so that you can make use of their strengths, their ways of working, and values. Second, take responsibility for communication.
Organizations are no longer built on force but on trust. The existence of trust between people does not necessarily mean that they like one another. It means that they understand one another.
You are not responsible of what other people say. You are responsible for what you say, what you don't say and your reactions to what other people say or don't say.
The second half of your life
After 20 years doing the same, managing oneself increasingly leads one to begin a second career.
There are three ways: start a new career, develop a parallel career, or become social entrepreneur.
There is one prerequisite: you must begin long before you enter in the second half of your life. (Am I in my second half? how do I know that I'm entering in the second half?)
No one can expect to live very long without experiencing a serious setback in his or her life or work. You will realize at some point you won't progress more, you won't learn that fast, you won't have enough energy. You need to think about how to be prepared and how to carry on for the rest of your life continue bring value.
