Thoughts on leveraging Peter Drucker's "Managing Oneself"

The premise of Peter Drucker's article, "Managing Oneself," is that you must understand yourself in order to maximize your contributions to the organizations in which you are involved.  I believe the article does a good job of outlining a means of determining your strengths, how you perform, how you work best with others, and where you can make the greatest contributions.  I believe that organizations can utilize the outline provided by Drucker to insure that they create a cooperative, highly effective, and productive organization.  It is “only when you operate from strengths can you achieve true excellence” (Drucker, 2005).

First, we must determine our own personal drivers.   By utilizing Feedback Analysis, we can start to get a clear picture of our own unique strengths and can develop action plans for improvements.   Additionally, we can determine how we perform.  Specifically, are you a listener or reader?  As an example, I am a reader.  I prefer to see things in writing before discussing them.  Beyond this, how do you learn?  In order to be a truly effective management team, we must each understand how we learn.  Do you learn best through reading, listening, talking or perhaps writing?

 Once we understand how we perform, we can look to the other drivers which Drucker addresses including working with others.  Do you work best with other team members or alone?  Are you a good mentor? By understanding this distinction, we can assure that team members who work best in groups are assigned to large, multi-discipline, projects and highly complex, independent tasks are assigned to those who work better alone.   As part of working with others, we must understand who are the decision makers and who are the advisors, as this will help us to propel the organization forward. 

After we have determined our strengths, performance drivers, and values, we can start to develop personal development plans and assign projects which stretch each of us, are meaningful, make a difference, and are visible to the organization and our peers. 

Upon complete of our self-exploration, we can then work to communicate our own personal drivers to other members of the management team.  By understanding how each of us works, our strengths, performance and values, we can start to customize our interactions and communications and thus improve our productivity and efficiency.  We can utilize our new learnings to target our communications as appropriate for each team member be they listener, reader, talker or writer, driving incredibly positive performance.

Christine (Reed) Barnhart

References

Drucker, P. F. (January 01, 2005). Managing Oneself. Harvard Business Review, 83, 1.

Great leaders inspire action.

A key criterion for leadership is self-awareness. In Daniel Goleman’s “The Focused Leader” he asserts that “leaders who heed their inner voices can draw on more resources to make better decisions and connect with their authentic selves” (2013,4).  This is echoed in Bill George’s book “Authentic Leadership” where he states that “authentic leaders have passion for their purpose, practice their values consistently, and lead with their hearts as well as their heads” (Sims, McLean and Mayer, 2007). I believe this is what Simon Sinek is discussing in his video “How great leaders inspire action”   (2009).  Time and again Simon stresses that “People don’t buy what you do.  They buy why you do it.”  Those who lead inspire us to follow, not because they have authority or power, but because we identify with their purpose, values or beliefs.   We follow for ourselves because we buy who they are or what motivates them.

Sinek provides some powerful evidence to support his theory, citing Apple’s iconic success over other able bodied computer companies, the Wright Brothers over a financially supported, highly educated, government insider, and Martin Luther King above all other civil rights leaders (2009).  All demonstrate Sinek’s Golden Circle which shows that leaders inspire because they understand why they do what they do, not because of what they do or how they do it (2009). 

I joined Mead Johnson Nutrition (MJN) in 2008, just a few months before they were spun off by Bristol Myers Squibb.  The president at the time was Steve Golsby and he successfully maneuvered the IPO and helped establish the foundations for Mead Johnson as a singularly focused nutritional provider for infants and children.   Looking back, everyone in the company was working countless hours, foregoing time with family and friends, and under a tremendous amount of stress but they did so willingly and with little complaint.  I believe that Steve demonstrates Sinek’s premise that great leaders inspire action. 

Steve absolutely exhibited the traits of an authentic leader.    He demonstrated his passion for MJN’s mission to provide the best start in life for infants and children in every decision, speech, and communication.  Additionally, he possessed high emotional intelligence, as he not only motivated us, but showed tremendous empathy and good social skills.  After only a single introduction, I was very surprised when he later greeted me by name in a chance meeting. 

Steve understood the “why” for himself and Mead Johnson. Our mission was to give children the best start in life, not efficiently produce highly technical liquid and powder formulations at the highest possible margins to provide shareholders with maximum value.  Employee loyalty and commitment during this period was not a function of our pay scale as that quickly wanes after several months of 80+ hour weeks. We were inspired by the man who led us; the man who was authentic with high EQ, earned credibility, demonstrated commitment, and a clear vision for the future. 

My personal experience with Mead Johnson and our senior leadership clearly supports Sinek’s mantra, “People don’t buy what you do.  They buy why you do it.”  Steve did not focus on what we did, producing highly advanced, clinically supported infant formula. He did not focus on how we did it with highly efficient, large scale, global operations.  He, instead, provided a clear and consistent message that we were the sole source of nutrition for at risk babies throughout the world and that we needed to continue to succeed beyond our current 100 year history.

MJN started trading on the NYSE on 11-February-2009 at $24/share.  As of today (29-January-2015), they are trading at over $101/share with over $20B in market capitalization.  They launched as an independent company during one of the worst financial climates since the Great Depression and have thrived in large part due to the energy, commitment and inspiring leadership of a single man. My experience confirms that great leaders really do inspire.

Christine (Reed) Barnhart

REFERENCES

George, B., Sims, P., McLean, A., & Mayer, D. (2007). Discovering your authentic leadership. Harvard Business Review.

Goffee, R., & Jones, G. (2000). Why should anyone be led by you? Harvard Business Review.

Goleman, D. (2004) What makes a leader? Harvard Business Review

Sinek, S. (2009). How great leaders inspire action [Web]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI0cJdOzUcQ&noredirect=1