tl;dr: Reconnecting with classic Drucker to come back to center on effective execution.

There are two books I keep in my studio at all times. One of them is The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker.

I don’t read it all the time or nearly as frequently as I probably should, but every now and then, I pick it up to remind me of some guiding principles.

I picked it up yesterday and finished Chapter 5, “Making Strengths Productive.”

Opportunities, Not Problems

As is usually the case, he challenges conventional thinking.

“In business, the successful companies are not those that work at developing new products for their existing line but those that aim at innovating new technologies or new businesses.

As a rule, it is just as risky, just as arduous, and just as uncertain to do something small that is new as it is to do somethign big that is new.

It is more productive to convert an opportunity into result than to solve a problem-which only restores the equilibrium of yesterday.”

It’s a commonly cited axiom in business to say “what problem are you solving?”

Drucker is telling us to think bigger and dare to say “we can create value here that previously didn’t exist.”

Which brings me to the big point: Focus.

As you know, one of the hats I wear is as the CMO of Gtmhub, the leading provider of OKR software in the world.

Drucker is frequently cited as the “grandfather” of the OKR methodology, the primary benefits of which are focus, accountability, and transparency and, most importantly, outcomes that matter.

In finishing up Chapter 5, one can see the kernel of the origin of OKRs.

“The effective executive does not, in other words, commit himself beyond the one task he concentrates on right now. Then he reviews the situation and picks the next one task that now comes first.”

The Business Meditation

I sometimes refer to OKRs as “a meditation for the business.”

In the OKR framework, one picks the one Objective that is of highest priority and then the 3-5 Key Results that determine the definition of success. This is done on an annual, quarterly, and even monthly basis.

The point of this exercise is, in the midst of all of the craziness that happens in the day to day of our lives, to “come back to center,” as we say in meditation, and ground ourselves in what is truly important-the center of our attention.

In sitting meditation, it may be the your breath or an object-like a rock- that is the focus. In business, it is your OKR.

In both events, it comes down to the ability to focus, to concentrate.

And this, Drucker says, is the secret sauce.

“Concentration-that is, the courage to impose on time and events his own decision as to what really matters and comes first-is the executives’s only hope of becoming the aster of time and events instead of their whipping boy.”