Manager: What can I contribute

Editor's note: In addition to managing others, managers must also manage themselves. The book "Effective Managers" by management master Drucker (also translated as "Drucker") is about how to manage yourself and make managers themselves more effective. We excerpted the chapter "What Can I Contribute" from the book and published it for readers.

Contribution is the value of managers. How to contribute? This article provides you with the experiences of managers who value contributions: they always want to understand the needs of others in order to help others contribute; their relationships are built on contributions; when they hold meetings, they focus on contribute. Managers who value their contributions are more productive.

Effective managers must focus on contribution and know how to integrate their work with long-term goals. He often asks himself, "What can I contribute to the performance and results of the organization I serve?" He emphasizes responsibility.

Valuing contribution is the key to effectiveness. The so-called effectiveness is reflected in the following three aspects: (1) one’s own work, including work content, work level and its influence; (2) one’s relationship with others, including one’s superiors, colleagues and subordinates; (3) The use of various management tools, such as meetings or reports.

But most managers can't do that. They value hard work, but ignore results. What they worry about is whether the organization they serve and their superiors have treated them badly and whether they should do something for them. They complain that they don't have authority, and as a result, things don't work.

Management consultancies provide services to client agencies, always spending a few days first speaking with the agency's senior executives. After figuring out the organization and history of the entrusting agency, the management consultant will ask: "You serve in your company, what do you think you should do?" Usually the other party's answer is nothing more than: "I preside over the company's accounting. Business." "I'm in charge of the sales department." Or: "Oh! I'm in charge of the work of more than 800 people!" But few people answer: "My task is to provide our manager with the information he needs, so that he can make the right decisions." "I am in charge of researching what products our company's customers will need in the future." "I will prepare relevant materials for some of the decision-making problems that our general manager will face."

If only Knowing that you work hard, if you always emphasize your own authority, no matter how high your position is, you can only be regarded as someone else's "subordinate". On the other hand, a person who values contributions and pays attention to being responsible for results, even if he is a low-ranking person, should be regarded as a "top management" because he can be responsible for the operating performance of the entire organization.

Commitment of managers

To attach importance to contribution, can the attention of managers not be limited by their own expertise, not limited by their own technology, not limited by their own departments. To the overall performance, but also to make him pay more attention to the outside world. Only the outside world is where results are produced. Therefore, he considers his skills, expertise, role, and the relationship of the unit to which he belongs to the overall organization and organizational goals. Only in this way will he think of customers, clients and patients in everything.

In fact, the reason why an organization exists, whether its products are commodities, government services, or health care services, is always for customers, for service objects, or for patients. Therefore, people who value their contributions may act very differently from others.

A large-scale public scientific research institute in the United States happened a few years ago. The Institute's Director of Publishing has retired. The director served in the publishing department as early as the 1930s when the institute was founded. But he was neither a scientist nor good at pen and ink. Therefore, various books and periodicals published by him are often criticized for lack of academic standards. It was later replaced by a scientist. Of course, since then, the books and periodicals published by this publication have a new look and have a high academic standard. Surprisingly, however, the scientific community that used to read the publication has since stopped subscribing. A university professor close to the institute found out why. The professor said: "Your former director of publishing, published books 'for' us, but the new director treats us as the object of writing."

The former director often asked himself: "What can I contribute to the Institute?" He thought: "I should arouse the interest of young scientists from the outside world in the research work of the Institute and attract them to participate in the work of the Institute." Therefore, he particularly emphasized the major events and major events in the Institute. decisions, even internal disputes. His actions have repeatedly aroused the dissatisfaction of the director and caused a head-on conflict. However, he always adhered to this principle. He said: "The success of our publications does not depend on whether 'we' like to read them or not, but on how many young and well-qualified scientists are willing to apply for jobs because they have read our publications."

The question of "what can I contribute" is about unlocking untapped potential at work. In fact, many jobs that appear to be brilliant are trivial compared to the potential contribution.

A commercial bank in the United States has an "agent department", whose work is very monotonous, but it is a profitable department, specializing in the registration and trading of stocks and bonds for major companies. The agency department maintains the entire shareholder register of each issuing company, regularly fills out notices and pays dividends, and does other similar uninteresting tasks. These jobs require a high degree of efficiency, and the numbers must not be wrong. However, this kind of work does not require much imagination. The acting department went about their job like this until one day a new manager took over. The new manager asked the question, "What can our agency do?" He finally discovered that the agency often interacted with senior financial executives of major companies, who often held the company's deposits, loans, Decision-making power to invest and allocate superannuation, etc. Of course, as far as the agency itself is concerned, its own work must be done first. But the new manager saw one of its greatest potentials here: The department could become a "salesman" for the rest of the bank. Since then, what was originally just a document processing department has suddenly become the bank's most successful sales department.

A manager who doesn't ask himself "what can I contribute" has no lofty goals at work, may even get the goals wrong and is especially prone to have a narrow understanding of the term "contribution".

It is not difficult to see from the above two examples that the word "contribution" has different meanings in different occasions. General institutions' requirements for effectiveness are often manifested in the following three aspects: direct results; establishing new values and reaffirming these values; cultivating and developing the talents needed for tomorrow. If any of these three dimensions are missing in effectiveness, the institution will decline or even collapse. Therefore, if managers want to make a little contribution, they must work hard in these three areas. However, among the three, which is the most important and which is the second, it depends on the manager's own situation, his position and the needs of the organization itself.

In terms of performance in the first dimension, direct outcomes are often the most obvious: in corporate institutions, sales and profits are direct outcomes; in hospitals, direct outcomes are the care and treatment of patients. However, sometimes the immediate results are not necessarily clear-cut. For example, the new manager of a bank's agency department in the previous example found that the department could become a "salesman" for the bank. But anyway, if even the managers themselves can't figure out what immediate results should be, then don't expect any results.

Take Britain's national airline as an example. The government manages these airlines as businesses, while viewing them as tools to enforce national policy and maintain Commonwealth unity. However, they have in fact been the source of funding for the survival and development of the British aviation industry. Three different direct outcomes are mixed up, with the result that neither outcome is achieved.

Of course, immediate results should be paramount. The survival of an organization requires immediate results, just as people need nutritious food. But beyond immediate results, an organization must also have a commitment to and fulfillment of its values, just as the human body needs vitamins and minerals in addition to food. An organization must have its own ideas and ideas, otherwise disintegration, confusion and paralysis are inevitable. In the case of a business institution, the commitment to its values may refer to establishing a technical authority, or it may refer to seeking the best goods and services for the general public and supplying them at the lowest price and highest quality.

Commitment to values, like immediate results, can sometimes be elusive.

The USDA has suffered over the years over commitments to two fundamentally different values: to develop agricultural productivity, or to nurture homesteaders as the backbone of American agriculture? For the sake of agricultural productivity, the United States has moved in the direction of agricultural industrialization, high mechanization, and large-scale commercialization. In order to foster homesteaders, it is necessary to try to maintain the normal rural form of productivity. U.S. agricultural policy has oscillated between these two extreme value commitments, and I don’t know how much money has been spent.

Finally we talk about future developments. No one is immune to death, and no matter how great his contribution is, his contribution has a certain limit. And an organization, by and large, is a tool for overcoming this limitation. Organizations fail if they don't last. So, an organization must prepare tomorrow's successors today, its human resources must be updated, and standards must be constantly raised. The next generation should be able to use the hard work of this generation as a starting point. Therefore, the next generation is standing on the shoulders of their predecessors, opening new heights, and on this basis, prepares a higher baseline for their next generation.

An organization that can only maintain today's vision, today's strengths, and today's achievements will lose its resilience. The vicissitudes of life, everything is changing. Therefore, companies that are only satisfied with today will find it difficult to survive in the fickle tomorrow.

A manager's ability to value contributions is the greatest driving force for talent development, because people can adjust themselves to external requirements. A manager who values contribution can also help those who work with him to look beyond, thus raising the standard of their work.

When the new president of a hospital held the first hospital meeting, he thought that a difficult matter had been discussed and a solution that could satisfy everyone had been obtained. But suddenly someone asked, "Will this method satisfy Nurse Baillian?" As soon as this question was raised, there was a heated debate in the meeting, and both sides disagreed. Until another, more aggressive solution is developed.

The new dean was stunned at the time. It was only later that he learned that Bai Lian used to be a senior nurse in the hospital. She herself does not have any special talents, she has never even been the head nurse. However, every time a decision about patient care was to be made in the hospital, Miss Bailian asked, "Have we done our best for the patient?" All the patients in the ward under Miss Bai's supervision recovered very quickly. So, over the years, everyone in this hospital has known the so-called "Briyan Principle", which is that in everything we must first ask ourselves: "Are we really doing the best we can to implement the purpose of this hospital?"

Although Miss Bailian had already retired ten years ago, the standards she set have been passed down to this day and are kept by all the colleagues in the hospital.

A commitment to contribution is a commitment to effectiveness. Without this commitment, managers are failing to live up to their responsibilities, to the detriment of the organizations they serve and the colleagues they work with.

Managers fail because of many factors. The common reason should be that when he himself takes on a new position, he is unable or unwilling to change to adapt to the needs of the new position. Believing that you have succeeded in the past, you are satisfied with your old ways of working, and you are bound to fail. As the position changes, the results he has to contribute must also change, and the relative proportions of the above three types of performance required by the new position will also change. If the manager does not understand this truth, he still sticks to the way he did things in the past. Even if he did the right thing in the right way in the past, he will now be "doing the wrong thing in the wrong way".

The people who made a difference in the U.S. government during the war were people who valued their contribution. They are successful because they can adapt to new roles and adapt to different values and commitments. And those who fail, although they have worked hard one by one, eventually fail because they are unwilling to put new challenges to themselves and fail to see the need to change the direction of their efforts.

A man in his 60s who became the general manager of a chain of stores across the United States has a financial background and is particularly good at numbers. In his mind, man is just a vague abstraction. Now, he has been promoted to general manager of the company. He began to ask himself: "What can I do that others haven't done, and if I do it well, can I make a difference in this company?" Managerial talent, that is the most meaningful contribution.

From then on, three times a week, when he returned to the office after lunch, he would stop by the personnel department and randomly select eight or nine pieces of the personnel information of young cadres. When he got to the office, he opened the first document, took a general look, and then answered a long-distance call to a branch. "Manager Luo? I'm the general manager. There is a young man surnamed Zhong in your branch. I know you said half a year ago that you would transfer him so that he could gain some sales experience. Is that the case? Why, still Didn't tune? Why didn't you tune him?"

Then he opened the second file and hung up the phone to another branch: "Manager Shi, I'm the general manager. There is a certain Lu in your place, aged Very light, you suggested in the past that you should transfer him to the accounting department to hone and hone, right? I found out from the personnel data that you have already transferred him to the accounting department. Manager Shi, you are really cultivating young people for the company, I'm very happy!"

This gentleman has not been a general manager for a long time and retired within a few years. This story happened more than ten years ago. But until today, every executive in the company credits the company's development today to the training of young managers he had in those years.

The higher a manager's position, the greater his external contribution. Because in an organization, usually only the highest-ranking managers can freely operate externally.

How to Make Professionals Work Effectively

For knowledge workers, contribution should be especially valued. Only in this way can his work truly contribute.

The knowledge worker does not produce "things"; he produces ideas, information, and ideas. A knowledge worker is usually a professional. In principle, his work can be fruitful only when he has acquired a certain know-how. That is, he must have expertise. However, the so-called expertise itself is one-sided and isolated. The output of one professional must be combined with the output of others to produce results.

This does not mean that the professional should become a "generalist", but that the professional must make himself effective and his expertise effective. He has to take into account who his output is used by, and he has to understand what the user should know in order to use his output effectively to produce results.

It is arrogant and arrogant for some professionals to think that ordinary people should and can make an effort to understand them, or even that they can only communicate with a small number of professionals in their peers. Even in a university or research institute, such an attitude renders the professional's work useless, and the professional's knowledge into a sleight of hand (sadly, such an attitude is still prevalent today). If a person wants to be a manager, in other words, if he wants to contribute, he must make his "product"—his knowledge—available to others.

Effective managers know this because they all have a mental drive to do their jobs better, to know what others need, discover, and understand. They will ask people inside the organization (including their supervisors, subordinates, and especially colleagues in other departments) questions like: "What do you need me to do to facilitate your contribution to the organization? When do you need me? In what form and in what way are these contributions provided?"

If a cost accountant could ask such a question, he would find data that would be obvious to him at a glance, but not to a manager who needed the numbers. is something completely foreign. He will also find that some numbers are important to him, but not used by the operating department. He may also find that there is a lot of information that other people need every day, but not in his report.

The so-called "generalist" should also be an expert, an expert who can connect a small area of his specialization with other broad areas of knowledge. A few people may be proficient in several subjects, but that does not mean that they are generalists, they are just experts who are proficient in several subjects.

While experts who know only one subject can be paranoid, experts who are proficient in several subjects can also be paranoid. But as long as an expert can shoulder the responsibility of contributing, he will be able to make the knowledge he specialises in with the whole. Although he may not necessarily be able to integrate several knowledges into one, he must know that he should understand the needs of others, the direction of others, the limits of others and the understanding of others, so that others can apply his results. Even if he could not appreciate the richness and interest of the vast field of knowledge, at least he would not be infected with arrogance and arrogance. Such habits destroy knowledge, impair its perfection and utility.

Right interpersonal relationships

In an organization, managers who think they are talented in management often do not have good interpersonal relationships. Managers who pay more attention to contribution in their own work and interpersonal relationships often have good interpersonal relationships, and their work is also productive because of this. This may be the true meaning of the so-called "good interpersonal relationships". In a work- or task-based environment, if we can’t achieve anything, what’s the point of getting along with people and having a good conversation? On the other hand, if you can achieve results at work, even if you occasionally speak harshly, it will not affect your interpersonal relationships.

In personal experience, I can name three people who have the most good relationships: General Marshall, the US Army Chief of Staff during World War II, and Darren Dart, the former president of General Motors. Mr. Sloan for more than 30 years, and the other is Durest, one of Mr. Sloan's senior executives. Among them, Durest, who successfully developed Cadillac cars for General Motors during the economic depression in the United States, unfortunately passed away after the end of World War II, otherwise he would probably become the president of General Motors.

The three gentlemen have different personalities. Marshall was a professional soldier, serious and loyal, but not lacking in enthusiasm. Sloan was born with a "leadership" appearance, restrained and decent, with a sense of awe-inspiring inviolability. Durest is a person with the temperament of the German "Old Heidelberger", warm and enthusiastic. But all three have one thing in common: They are loyal and approachable. Although the three of them treat people in different ways, they all build relationships on the basis of "contribution". They can work closely with people and put themselves in others' shoes in everything. Of course, they also face many tough personnel decisions, but they are never troubled by so-called interpersonal relationships. They make personnel decisions that everyone takes for granted.

Effective interpersonal relationships have the following four basic requirements. Contributions focus on these conditions: �r

·Communication with each other�r

·Teamwork�r

�Self-development�r

�Development of others

1. Mutual communication is one of the most important management issues in the past 20 years. Whether in the business world, in public administration, in military establishments, in hospitals, this topic is of great concern.

But the results were limited. While we've known for 20 years that modern organizations need and lack communication, today's communication efforts haven't seen much improvement. But at least we're starting to understand why communication doesn't work so well.

It turns out that we have always regarded communication as a top-to-bottom matter, a supervisor-to-subordinate matter. Communication can never be successful with only a one-way relationship from the top to the bottom. This is our conclusion from practical experience and communication theory. The more severe the superior wants to speak to the subordinate, the less listened to the subordinate. Subordinates want to hear what they want to hear, not what the other person has to say.

A manager who values contribution in his work usually expects his subordinates to be contribution-focused as well. Therefore, he must often ask his subordinates: "What kind of contribution should our organization and me expect from you? What should we expect from you? How can you maximize your knowledge and abilities?" Only in this kind of review can communication be possible and it is easy to succeed.

The supervisor has the right and responsibility to judge whether his suggestion is feasible or not after the subordinate has considered the contribution he thinks can be made.

We've all had the experience that goals set by subordinates themselves are often beyond the expectations of their supervisors. In other words, supervisors and subordinates often see problems from very different angles. The more capable subordinates are, the more willing they are to take responsibility for themselves, and what they see and hear, the objective reality, opportunities and needs they see, the more different they are from their supervisors. Subordinates' conclusions and supervisors' expectations are often in stark contrast.

When this kind of disagreement arises, it is usually not worth paying attention to who is right between the supervisor and the subordinate, because effective communication has been established between the superior and the subordinate.

2. Emphasis on contribution facilitates horizontal communication and thus promotes teamwork.

The question "Who needs my output and makes it profitable?" can help us see the importance of some people who are not related to the manager's area of responsibility. This realization is the reality of a knowledge-based organization: in a knowledge-based organization, work depends primarily on teams of professionals with different knowledge and skills to work effectively. The cooperation of heroes from all walks of life lies in being spontaneous and in being able to follow the logic of the situation and the needs of tasks, rather than relying only on a formal organizational structure.

For example, in a hospital (perhaps the most complex type of modern knowledge-based organization), all nurses, nutritionists, X-ray physicians, pharmacists, pathologists, and other specialists must work together Cooperation. They faced the same patient, but neither felt that they were being managed and directed by someone else. However, they must work for a common purpose and must conform to the general plan of action, the treatment prescribed by the attending physician. But from an organizational standpoint, they each have their own superiors. In medical work, they each do their best and fulfill their responsibilities as experts. At the same time, everyone must inform each other of any special circumstances and special needs of a patient. Otherwise, their efforts are likely to backfire.

In a hospital, if everyone has developed the habit of valuing contribution, their cooperation and collaboration will certainly not be difficult. On the contrary, if there is no such spirit, even if there is the most perfect system, there are various committees, there are meetings, there are announcements, and there are orders, it is still impossible to have such horizontal communication, and it is impossible to naturally form a The right task-focused work team.

The organizational problems that occur in today's institutions are by no means solved by traditional concepts and theories. A knowledge worker must specialize in what he does, and must take responsibility for his own abilities and the quality of his work. In terms of formal organization, they "belong" to a professional functional department - such as the biochemistry department, nursing department, etc. in a hospital. From the standpoint of personnel management, their training, files, rewards and punishments, promotions, etc. are also managed by professional departments. But when they actually work, they must be a responsible member of the team. Their teams consisted of knowledge workers in disparate fields, centered on the specific tasks they were taking on at the time.

Of course, emphasizing contributions doesn't necessarily solve organizational problems, but it at least increases awareness of tasks and communication, and enables an organization that is not yet ideal to be effective.

Since the advent of computers, communication among knowledge workers has become more important. How to "communicate information" has long been a difficult problem to solve. In the past, all information was processed and transmitted by people, so it was often distorted by communication. That is, information is influenced by the perceptions, impressions, opinions, judgments, and prejudices of individuals in the communication process. And now that there are computers, suddenly all the information is out of hand, so there is no longer a personal opinion in the communication process. All the information suddenly became pure information. Our problem today is how to establish the minimum necessary communication so that we can understand each other and recognize each other's needs, goals, feelings and ways of doing things. And what can pure information tell us? Only by direct contact between people, through language or writing, can the purpose of communication be achieved.

The more automated the processing of information, the more we need to create opportunities for effective communication.

3. Whether you can develop personally depends to a large extent on whether you value your contribution.

If we could ask ourselves: What would be my greatest contribution to the organization? This is tantamount to saying, "What do I need to develop myself, and what knowledge and skills do I need to learn to help me contribute to the organization? Which of my strengths should I use in my work? What standards do you set yourself?"

4. Managers who value contributions will inevitably inspire others to seek self-development. The standard set by such a manager must not be a standard he personally identifies, but a standard based on task requirements. Moreover, the standards he sets are generally demanding, high expectations, lofty goals, and high impact work.

We know very little about self-development. But we can assert that ordinary people grow up according to their own goals and requirements, especially knowledge workers. What they think they should achieve is how they will grow. If they are not strict with themselves, they can only stay where they are, and there will be no development. On the other hand, if they are very demanding of themselves, they will surely grow into outstanding people, and they will not necessarily spend more effort than those who are not promising.

Effective meetings

Effective managers know what they can expect from a meeting and what the purpose of the meeting is or should be. He asks himself, "Why are we holding this meeting? Is it for a decision? Is it to announce something? Is it to clarify what we should be doing?" Think about the purpose of the briefing. He must insist that the meeting must really contribute.

Effective managers begin a meeting with a description of the meeting's purpose and requested contribution. At the same time, he has to try to keep the meeting tightly around the theme. He would never make the meeting an opportunity to set the stage for everyone to speak freely. Of course, if the purpose of the meeting is to stimulate everyone's ideas and ideas, he will not just let one person gushing. He will stimulate the interest of every participant to speak. But before the meeting was over, he would go back to the topic he introduced at the opening and make the conclusions of the meeting fit the topic.

Of course there are other ways to make meetings effective. (For example, one of the simple but most easily overlooked rules is: You can lead a meeting, hear important speeches, or have a discussion with everyone. But you can't both lead a meeting and speak at the same time. Anyway, the most important thing The key is to focus on contribution from the start.)

Focusing on contribution is enough to eliminate a fundamental problem with managers: getting you to prioritize in a jumble of things. Valuing contribution is an organizational principle that enables managers to grasp the relevance of each work.

The emphasis on contribution also turns managers' innate weaknesses -- over-dependence on others, and belonging within the organization -- into strengths that create a strong work team.

The last thing to explain is that we often have a tendency to be confused by the inside of the organization and not get out of the organization. Paying attention to contribution can make managers shift their attention from "internal affairs, internal work and internal relations" to "the external world" and to the results of the organization. Emphasizing contributions enables managers to strive to engage directly with the outside world, including markets and customers, patients in the community, and the public outside of government agencies.

In short, valuing contribution is valuing effectiveness.

——This article is authorized by Huazhang Branch of Machinery Industry Press, and is excerpted from the book "Effective Managers" by Peter Drucker, which was published by the press in June 2005.

Manager: What can I contribute

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