Chapter 5 5

If there's a "secret" to being productive, it's being good at focusing.Effective managers put the important things first and do one thing at a time. Concentrating on doing things is not only due to the needs of the nature of the manager's work, but also determined by the characteristics of people.The rationale for this is that there are many important contributions to be made and very limited time to do them.If you analyze the work of a manager, you will find that there is no end to important tasks.If you look at the manager's time, you will also find that there is very little time to complete these important tasks.No matter how well a manager manages his time, most of his time is not his own.He was always troubled by the problem of not having enough time.

The more a manager wants to make a significant contribution, the more he needs to have a whole period of time.The more he wants to change from being busy to being efficient, he needs to pay more attention to continuous efforts, and it is difficult to produce results without a large amount of time for such efforts.However, even trying to secure half a day or two weeks of productive work requires a great deal of self-control and a strong determination to say "no" to others. By the same token, the harder a manager tries to develop people's strengths, the more he will feel the need to seize important opportunities to focus on people's strengths and strengths.Because that's the only way to get benefits.

However, concentration is also due to such a need: it is quite difficult for most people to do one thing well in a period of time, and it is naturally even more difficult to do two things well at the same time.Of course, humans can do a variety of things beyond imagination, so it can be said to be a "multifunctional tool".However, the most effective way to use human talents effectively is to concentrate all personal talents on a certain task.Only in this way can human talents bring success to mankind. We may have seen circus troupe performers throwing balls into the air, but what about multiple balls in the air at the same time? But even jugglers only last about ten minutes.If you keep playing, the ball will soon fall to the ground.

Naturally, there are still differences between people.Some people work best when doing two things at the same time, because the two can play a role in adjusting each other.There is a prerequisite for doing two things well at the same time: you must give each thing enough energy and time, otherwise it will be difficult to do well.However, I don't think there are too many people who want to do three things well at the same time. I heard that Mozart had such a skill.He seems to be able to compose several pieces at the same time, and when they are written, they are all masterpieces.But Mozha is the only exception.Other first-class prolific composers, such as Bach (B8ch>, Handel (Hsndel), Haydn (H8ydn), Verdy) wrote one piece at a time, and they always finished writing a piece. I started to write another piece of music, or I would write another piece of music after a certain piece was temporarily put on hold in the middle of the creation.For managers, they want to become Mozha-style management talents.It is impossible to do several things well at the same time.

Concentrating on one job well is necessary because managers always have a lot of work to do.Doing one job well at a time is precisely the best way to speed up your work.The better a manager is at concentrating time, energy, and various other resources, the better he will be able to accomplish various tasks. No manager I know has contributed more than the recently retired general manager of a pharmaceutical company.When he started, the company was small, operating in only one country. When he retired 11 years later, the company had developed into a world-class pharmaceutical company.In the first few years of his tenure, he concentrated all his energy on research work, considering the direction of development, formulating research plans, and recruiting research talents.The company had never had an advantage in the research field before, and it often felt very difficult to follow others.Although the newly appointed general manager is not a scientist, he clearly realizes that the company must not spend another 5 years doing what others were doing 5 years ago.The company must have its own direction and develop its own products.In this way, it took him 5 years to finally make the company a world leader in two important areas.

Then, the manager developed the enterprise into a large international company, and all this was done after several old pharmaceutical companies such as Switzerland had already established a foothold in the world and held a leading position in the world for several years. It seems that it is not easy to get things done.After carefully analyzing the trend of drug consumption, he concluded that medical insurance and the health care system promoted by the government will greatly promote the demand for drugs.He is very good at timing.It often seizes the critical moment when a certain country is preparing to vigorously promote the health care system, and enters its products into the country's market.This approach not only makes it a leader in the drug market in those countries, but also does not have to run the risk of crowding out other international pharmaceutical companies.

During the last five years of his tenure, he concentrated on developing a strategy suitable for the modern medical system.This system is rapidly turning healthcare into a "public utility".Under this system, the government, nonprofit hospitals, and other quasi-government organizations (such as the Blue Cross in the United States) would pay patients, while doctors would only prescribe medicines.It is too early to tell whether his campaign will be successful because the strategy was completed when he was about to retire.However, as far as I know, his company is the only -- 'big pharma company that takes strategy, pricing, sales, and global industry relationships into account.As a general manager, it is not easy to accomplish such a difficult job during his tenure.However, this person has accomplished three things - formulating a global strategy for the company; building the company into a powerful global enterprise; and cultivating a strong professional team for the company.An important experience for him to achieve these results is to concentrate on doing one thing well at a time.

This is the "secret" of some people's ability to accomplish so many seemingly difficult things.They do one thing at a time, but it turns out that they take much less time to do everything than other people. People who can't get anything done often seem busier than anyone else.First, they underestimate the time it will take to do everything.They always hope that everything goes well.But managers all have this experience: It is impossible for everything to go smoothly, there will always be unexpected things to happen, and there are always some unpleasant things that happen.Therefore, effective managers always leave room for scheduling.Second, some managers who can't get things done always like to rush the progress, only to find that haste makes waste.And effective managers never do things in a hurry, they like to be steady, one step at a time.Finally, the aforementioned kind of manager tends to do several things at once.in their plans.There is no such thing as the minimum amount of time required to do everything. Once something goes wrong in the plan, the entire plan can only end in failure.

Effective managers understand that they have to get a lot done, and each job has to achieve a certain effect.Therefore, they will concentrate all the resources of the organization and their own time and energy, insist on putting important things first, and finish one thing at a time. The first way to learn to focus is to be good at letting go of the past that no longer has value.Effective managers will periodically review and review their own and their colleagues' plans, asking questions such as, "If we haven't done this, should we be doing it now?" Unless the answer is an absolute "yes," they'll drop the thing, or put it on hold, at least not committing resources to a "past" that no longer produces value.The top-notch resources, especially the very scarce human resources, that are being used on the mission of "yesterday" must be brought back immediately and must be put into the fight to find future opportunities.

Whether they like it or not, it is inevitable that managers will pick up the pieces of the past.What is happening today is a result of yesterday's actions and decisions.No matter how high a person's title and rank is, he can't always foresee the future.Actions and decisions that seemed wise and courageous at the time can become problems and crises today, or prove to be foolish actions.One of the specific tasks of managers, whether in government, business, or other institutions, is to invest today's resources in creating the future.That is to say, every manager must constantly spend time, energy, and intelligence to repair some actions and decisions in the past, whether these decisions and actions were taken by themselves or by their predecessors. .In fact, managers tend to spend most of their working hours dealing with things like this.

So, at least we can stop spending too much time and energy on those activities and tasks left over from the past that no longer have any positive significance for the present. It is not very difficult to get out of the situation of complete failure, because the lessons can be learned.However, past successes, even after circumstances change, always linger and are there to make a difference.Even more dangerous, some activities should have good results, but for some reason, the effects are not obvious.As I have explained elsewhere, these past successes and activities tend to become "an asset of managerial egoism" and become sacrosanct.However, we must understand that these past practices and activities, if not radically revised, will undoubtedly consume all the energy of the institution.In the futile effort to embody the value of "managing the asset of egoism," some of the best minds will be buried in vain. All institutions are susceptible to both diseases.These maladies are especially prevalent in government agencies.The plans and activities of government departments, like those of other agencies, will not keep up with the changing needs of the situation over time.However, in government agencies, these plans and activities are not only considered to be eternal principles, but have often been rooted in the structure of the institution, melted into its rules and regulations, become the vested interests of some personnel, and are also subject to the legislative branch of government. Support from relevant personnel.Had this happened before 1914, when the government was small and did not play a large role in social life, it would not have done much harm.Today, however, the situation is quite different, and today's government must not afford to divert its energies and resources to yesterday's events.It is estimated that at least half of the agencies in the US federal government still manage agencies that no longer need to be managed.The Interstate Commerce Commission, for example, still focuses its efforts on protecting the public interest from the railroad monopoly that private companies had over the railroads that ceased to exist thirty years ago.In addition, some agencies (as is the case with most of the agricultural planning agencies) are still focusing on satisfying the vanity of politicians, focusing on things that should have an effect, but never have any results. Effective institutions, therefore, desperately need a new guiding principle.According to this principle, the plans of all government departments, all the regulations, can only be considered as time-limited, after a certain period - maybe ten years - they must be replaced by new plans and regulations.The exceptions, of course, are those programs and regulations that, after careful scrutiny by outsiders, are still valid and can still contribute, and their validity period can be extended. President Johnson ordered an investigation into all government agencies and their programs in 1965-1966.They used Secretary of Defense McNamara's "plan review method" in the investigation, which was used by McNamara in the first place-? The method drastically cut down the obsolete and ineffective work in the Department of Defense.This is a very necessary and good start.Otherwise, people will continue to retain the traditional idea that all plans will always work except those that have been proven to no longer work.In such a case, the use of the best methods will not have a positive effect.A new idea should be established: that all plans are quickly outdated, and should be abolished unless they have been proved to be still necessary and effective.Otherwise, modern government agencies will be overwhelmed by more and more regulations, systems, and regulations, and the government agencies themselves will be suffocated by their own bloat. The government sector suffers most from bloat, but other institutions are not immune.Big businessmen who complain loudly about bureaucracy in the government sector may encourage "control mechanisms" in their companies, even though they don't actually control anything.They advocate investigations of all kinds, which they actually use to cover up their own lack of decisive decision-making.They expand various personnel to conduct various research and develop various relationships.They will waste their time and the time of their key personnel on yesterday's products that are already outdated, and they have no energy to take into account the products that have a good chance of success in the future.Some academic will loudly condemn the staggering waste of big business, but in his departmental meeting he may argue for the compulsory inclusion of obsolete subjects. Managers who want to be effective both in themselves and in their organizations must keep a close eye on all plans, activities, and tasks.He would ask, "Is this work worth doing?" If the answer was no, he would delete the work without hesitation.In this way, he can concentrate his main energy on a few main tasks. As long as this task is done well, the work efficiency of himself and the organization can be greatly improved. Most importantly, effective managers always delete some old activities before starting a new one.This is necessary to control the "bloat" of the mechanism.Without such controls, institutions will fail and become fragmented and unmanageable.Social institutions, like biological organisms, need to be kept small and lean. Every manager knows that the beginning of everything is difficult.To do new things, it is inevitable that you will encounter difficulties.Unless he already has a way out of the predicament when he encounters difficulties, otherwise it is tantamount to a failure from the beginning.The most effective way to get a new job out of the woods is to have some of the proven best talent on hand.Such talents must have been too busy to breathe. If the manager wants such people to take up new jobs, he must first help them relieve their current work burden. There is another solution to the dilemma, which is to "hire" new people for new jobs, but this is too risky.Generally, new hires are only made when there is a need to expand an already well-established and well-run business.When a new task needs to be pioneered, managers often use tried and tested veterans with proven expertise.Starting a new mission is the next bet.Although some Man has done this task many times in the past.An experienced, pragmatic manager would never, if he could, hire an outsider to do the job, because that would add new risks to the original ones.Managers have learned this from practice: There are quite a few people who seemed geniuses elsewhere and are utter failures within six months of arriving here. Organizations often need to bring in new people and bring them new perspectives.If organizations only promote people from within, it is like inbreeding, which ends up underdeveloping the organization.Of course, as long as possible, in some high-risk areas, such as top management positions or positions responsible for new important tasks, new people are generally not used.New recruits often only serve as deputies to senior leaders.Or take charge of those work tasks that have already drawn boundaries and clear goals. Only by deleting old tasks in a planned and uninterrupted manner can we have time and energy to create new situations.As far as I know, many organizations have no shortage of new ideas, and "creativity" is not a problem at all.However, almost no organization is willing to work on these good ideas, because everyone is too busy with "yesterday's" tasks.If plans and activities were regularly reviewed and those no longer productive were eliminated, even the most intransigent bureaucracy would accomplish enormous feats in spurring creativity. In terms of operation and management, DuPont has always done better than other chemical companies in the world.Once the sales of a product or a production process start to decline, DuPont will not hesitate to abandon it.The company will never invest its scarce talent, capital and other resources in defending yesterday's outdated things.However, most other businesses (chemical or not) operate on very different principles than DuPont.They will say something like: "As long as we run our car antenna factory well, there will always be a market." "Our company started with this product, so it is now our responsibility to keep this product in the market." .” Although these companies also send managers to seminars on innovative products, they always complain that they can't come up with new products.At the same time, DuPont was busy producing and selling new products all day long. This is the principle of "removing the old and bringing forth the new", without "removing the old", there can be no "bringing out the new". Well, maybe there will still be state-run public carriages on the streets today, the government is still distributing subsidies, and a strong research plan for "retraining horses" will be formulated. In front of the manager, there is a lot of work worth doing, but the time of the manager is very limited.There are many opportunities in the future, but there are too few capable people who can seize the opportunities.Moreover, managers will inevitably encounter many problems and crises. In this case, managers must make clear decisions about which things need to be prioritized and which problems can be postponed.So, what is the basis for making this decision? Is the manager making the decision based on his own judgment, or is it based on environmental pressure? In short, no matter what, the work in front of us must be adjusted so that It can be accomplished within a limited time and makes it possible for those able to seize these opportunities. If it is not up to managers to make decisions, but to determine the order of work according to environmental pressures, we can predict that important work will definitely be sacrificed.Generally speaking, turning decisions into actions is the most time-consuming part of the whole job, so there is often not enough time for this transformation process.Unless a task is part of an agency's behaviour, it simply cannot be done.That is to say, only when everyone in the organization has taken on the task as their own and has learned new ways of doing old things, everyone feels compelled to take on new tasks, and has adopted the rules established by the managers. When the project becomes one's daily work, the task can be successfully completed.If this process of transformation described above is neglected due to lack of time, all work and effort will be wasted.And this is the inevitable result of the manager's failure to concentrate and grasp the primary task. Another predictable consequence of allowing environmental pressures to dictate priorities is that top management will not be able to do its job.The work of the top management is always more flexible, because it does not try to solve yesterday's crisis, but only wants to create a new situation tomorrow.External pressure always forces managers to focus on past events.Especially at the highest level, once you are swayed by external pressure, you will inevitably ignore those jobs that cannot be replaced by others.They are increasingly disinterested in what's going on outside the institution, losing touch with the outside world that is the key to the institution's effectiveness.These pressures have always favored internal affairs of the institution, favored what has already happened to the future, always favored crises to overlook opportunities, always favored quick success to the blind of the real real world, and always prioritized urgent matters to high stakes. However, the reaction was numb. It's not just about figuring out which things have to be prioritized, that's easy to do, and anyone can do it.Many managers can't concentrate on a certain job. The main difficulty is that they can't determine which things can be postponed. Most managers have this experience: a thing that has been put on hold is actually tantamount to being abandoned.Many managers feel that there is nothing more frustrating than picking up a project that has been put on hold.At this time, it is brought up again, and the timing is not right.Timing is a crucial factor in the success of any endeavor. — A thing that might have worked well five years ago will surely cause frustration and failure if you wait to do it now. A pair of lovers were married to others when they were 21 years old, and they were both widowed when they were 38 years old. By chance, the two met again and finally became good friends of Qin and Jin.Things like this probably only existed in the descriptions of Victorian novels.In real life, such a 38-year-old reunited couple would not be happy at all.If they got married at the age of 21, they might still have a chance to live a happy life together, but after 17 years, their lives have undergone great changes, with different lifestyles and personalities. There is a big difference, and it seems difficult to get together under such circumstances. Someone who aspires to be a doctor as a young man is forced to go into business with great success.By the age of 50, he was a well-known businessman, but wanted to go back to studying medicine and started medical school.Such a person may not even be able to complete their studies, let alone become a successful doctor.Of course, if he has a particularly strong motivation, such as a certain religious belief as a driving force, he may also become a missionary dedicated to the medical cause.But under normal circumstances, he will find the subjects he has learned and the set of things learned by rote to be dull and boring to him, which is really unbearable. There were two companies that had good prospects for merging six or seven years ago. Later, because the president of one company did not want to work under the president of the other company, the merger was shelved.Now the president who doesn't want to work under others has long since retired, but the combination of the two companies has long since passed, if they insist on getting together.I am afraid that it is no longer a good thing for either party. Since being put on hold is effectively cancelled, managers are afraid to delay any work easily.They understand that although the delayed work is not their top priority, it is also risky if it is delayed, because the things you relegate to the back burner may also become a magic weapon for the success of competitors.There is no guarantee that a policy that a politician or an executive leader decides to delete will not spark one of the most heated and dangerous political debates. For example, neither President Eisenhower nor President Kennedy was willing to deal with the issue of civil rights as the most important issue.When President Johnson took office, he made it clear that he would not treat the Vietnam War issue and foreign policy as a whole as the most important thing. Those liberals who firmly supported his "war on poverty" at the beginning actually developed strong dissatisfaction with him. Deciding to put off a job is not a pleasant thing to do.Because the job to be moved back is likely to be someone's highest priority.Drawing up a list of priorities and taking a "do some of everything" approach is easy and pleasing to all parties, but it has the drawback of getting nothing done. An analysis of "priority" issues would be a long story.However, when it comes to what should be prioritized and what can be postponed, the most important thing is not a clear analysis, but the courage that must be shown. Here are a few important principles to help prioritize, each of which is closely related to courage: *Look at the future, not just the past; * We must pay attention to opportunities, not only to see existing problems, * To choose your own direction, you can't just follow the wave and follow what others say; *The goal must be high and innovative, not just "safety" and convenience. Some people have conducted many surveys on scientists engaged in research, and the results have proved that it is not so much the ability to conduct research that determines the results of research, but rather the courage to seek opportunities that determine the results of research.Of course, like Einstein, Neil Genius scientists like Bohr or Max Planck are exceptions.Scientists are less likely to achieve excellence if they choose their research topics by focusing only on the areas where success is most likely, rather than on meeting the challenges.They may be able to write a lot of notes or supplementary explanations for many books, but no physical law or new concept will be named after them.Achievements only belong to those scientists who are good at seizing opportunities to choose research topics, and belong to those who regard the norms established by others as constraints rather than decisive factors. The same is true in the corporate world.The truly successful companies are not those that develop new products for their existing product lines, but those that aim to create new technologies that revolutionize the entire enterprise.Generally speaking, small innovations and large innovations will face the same risks, the tasks will be equally arduous, and both will make people feel uncertain.Turning opportunities into outcomes creates far more value than focusing on problem solving, which can only restore balance to "yesterday." The issues of priority and deferment are not static and should be reconsidered and revised according to changes in actual conditions.For example, no U.S. president has a set plan for prioritizing certain things.In fact, in the process of completing the tasks that must be prioritized, which ones should be prioritized and which ones can be moved to the back are always changing. Effective managers focus on the work in progress and not on other things.After completing one task, he will choose the next task that requires his best efforts based on the new situation. If you want to concentrate and concentrate on a job, you must first have enough courage to arrange the sequence of work according to your own analysis and understanding.Only in this way can managers hope to become the masters of time and tasks, rather than just being their slaves.