What a classic exposition! Please note that in this discussion, peter drucker put forward two parallel concepts: efficiency and effectiveness, doing the right thing and doing the right thing. In real life, whether it is the business behavior of an enterprise or the personal working style, people often pay attention to the former: efficiency and doing things correctly. But in fact, the first important thing is efficiency rather than efficiency, and doing the right thing rather than doing the right thing. As peter drucker said: "For enterprises, what is indispensable is efficiency, not benefit."
"Doing things correctly" emphasizes efficiency, and as a result, we can move towards our goals faster; "Doing the right thing" emphasizes efficiency, and the result is to ensure that our work makes solid progress towards our own goals. In other words, efficiency focuses on the best way to do a job, while efficiency focuses on the best use of time-this includes doing or not doing a job. The biggest secret of McKinsey's excellent working method is that everyone in McKinsey must make sure that he "does the right thing" before starting to work.
There is an essential difference between "doing things correctly" and "doing the right thing". "Doing the right thing" is based on the premise of "doing the right thing". Without this premise, "doing things right" will become meaningless. Do the right thing first and then do the right thing. Imagine that in an industrial enterprise, an employee produces products according to the requirements on the production line. He is doing things correctly, and his quality and operation behavior have reached the standard. But if this product has no buyers or users at all, it is not doing the right thing. At this time, no matter how correct his way of doing things is, the result is futile.
Doing things correctly and doing the right thing is not only an important working method, but also a very important management idea. At any time, for any person or organization, "doing the right thing" is far more important for the survival and development of an enterprise than "doing the right thing". "Doing the right thing" is a strategic solution of an enterprise, and "doing the right thing" is an implementation problem. If you do it right, even if there are some deviations in execution, the result may not be fatal; But if you do something wrong, even if it is executed perfectly, the result will definitely be a disaster for the enterprise.
For enterprises, advocating the work method of "doing the right thing" to train people who do the right thing is completely different from advocating the work method of "doing the right thing" to train people who do the right thing. The former is conservative and passive, while the latter is enterprising and innovative.
Orwell Greenshaw, a senior consultant of McKinsey, once pointed out: "We may not know what the right path is, but we should not go too far on the wrong path." This is a warning of great significance to everyone. He told us a very important working method. If you still don't know where the "right way" (the right thing) is, at least, stop what you are doing!
First of all, the process of finding out the "right thing" is the process of solving problems. Sometimes, a problem will be put on your desk for you to solve. The problem itself is quite clear, and the method to solve it is also very clear. However, no matter which direction you are heading for, the correct way to start from that place can only be: before that, please make sure that you have solved the correct problem-probably not the one I gave you earlier.
A McKinsey alumnus with a background in science and engineering told me that the way to make work efficient and excellent is organic and complicated, just like medical problems. The patient went to the doctor's office and said that he had a slight fever. He will tell the doctor his symptoms: sore throat, headache and stuffy nose. Doctors don't believe the patient's conclusion right away. He will open the medical records, ask some exploratory questions and then make his own diagnosis. The patient may have a fever, a cold, or worse, but the doctor will not rely on the patient's own judgment to make a diagnosis.
At McKinsey, we find that customers are often not better at diagnosing themselves than doctors' patients, and sometimes the problems they bring us are extremely unclear. When I conducted my first research in the company, our team's task was to help an investment bank in new york "improve its profitability", which was like a patient telling a doctor "I don't feel well". In another case, a team from McKinsey evaluated the expansion opportunities of a branch of a manufacturing company. After several weeks of data collection and analysis, the team realized that what this branch needed was not expansion, but closure or sale.
The only way to know whether the question given to you is true or not is to dig deep and collect facts, ask questions and wander around. It won't take you long to find out if you are going in the right direction.
When the black-and-white TV set is in the mature stage and the color TV set is in the ascendant, if the black-and-white TV set is still selected as the target product, no matter how high its production efficiency is, this product will definitely be unsalable. Although it was right to improve production efficiency, it caused great losses because it was wrong.
What do you do when you are sure that you are worried about a wrong question? When the doctor thinks that the patient's mild symptoms cover up some more serious problems, he will tell the patient, "Mr. Jones, I can treat your headache, but I think it is a symptom of some more serious diseases, and I will do further examination." In the same way, you should go to your client or your boss-as long as it is the person who asked you to invest in the first place-and tell him, "You let me know about the problem of X, but what really affects our performance comes from solving the problem of Y.. If you really want to, I can solve the X problem now, but I think it is more in our interest to focus on Y. "
If you have supporting information, the customer can accept your suggestion or let you continue to deal with the original problem, but you have done your duty and acted in the best interests of the customer.
This is the principle of McKinsey's work. Do the right thing and do the right thing. Finding the "right question" first is the first step to do the right thing.
With the ultimate goal at the beginning, everything and every job will have its specific best result, and this best result is the ultimate goal we expect to achieve when doing a thing or a job. Before you begin to do something, as long as you clearly remember the ultimate goal, you can be sure that no matter what you do on any day, you will not violate the most important standards you set for it, and everything you do will make a meaningful contribution to this ultimate goal.
Without goals, there can be no actual actions, let alone actual results. The most obvious feature of efficient people is that they often know clearly what they want to achieve before doing anything, and clearly know what is necessary and what often seems essential, but in fact it is insignificant. They always have the ultimate goal from the beginning, so they can always get twice the result with half the effort, excellent and efficient.
Keeping the ultimate goal in mind from the beginning means that you know where your destination is from the beginning and where you are now from the beginning. Towards your goal, at least you can be sure that every step you take is in the right direction It's very frustrating that you look busy and find yourself in the opposite direction. This is the most common mistake made by many people who are inefficient and don't know the excellent working methods. They often give up halfway and waste a lot of time and energy on useless things.
There are countless things waiting for us to deal with every day. Many things seem urgent, such as the phone ringing, the next hour's meeting, answering a customer's letter and so on. It seems necessary and understandable to fall into a transactional circle and keep us busy. But this is not the case. My experience at McKinsey tells me that at least 80% of what everyone does in a day is unimportant. In other words, maybe we spend 80% of our time and energy doing the right thing every day, but not doing the right thing. This is a very dangerous working method.
Keeping the ultimate goal in mind from the beginning can help us quickly determine the importance of things, which is an important guarantee that we will always be on the road to doing the right thing. This "ultimate goal" will always remind us that although it is urgent, it is not important. Although it seems that it can be delayed, it will help us move towards our goal faster.
There is a widespread example. We walked into a jungle and began to clean the bushes. When we worked hard to clean this bush and straightened up to enjoy the fun after finishing a hard job, we suddenly found that there was a jungle next to it, not this jungle, and that was the jungle we needed to clean! How many people are working, just like these bush-cutting workers, often just bury themselves in cutting shrubs, and don't even realize that it is not the jungle to be cut.
Keeping the ultimate goal in mind from the beginning can help us gradually form good working methods and develop rational judgment rules and work habits. If we have the ultimate goal from the beginning, we will show different visions. In fact, this kind of thinking habit and working method that does not focus on a specific thing has benefited me a lot. In McKinsey's later working years, this way of working brought me unexpected joy and countless gains.
It is often difficult for a person to avoid being entangled in all kinds of trivial matters and chores at work by arranging priorities. Many people are exhausted and upset by these things because they don't master efficient working methods, and they can't settle down to do what they should do, or they are dazzled by seemingly urgent things and don't know what they should do at all. As a result, they wasted their good time in vain, resulting in low efficiency and insignificant efficiency.
A large number of studies have shown that in work, people always decide their priorities according to the following criteria:
(1) Do what you like first, then do what you don't like.
(2) Do familiar things first, and then do unfamiliar things.
(3) Do the easy things first, and then do the difficult things.
(4) Do things that can be done well in a small amount of time first, and then do things that take a lot of time to do well.
(5) Deal with things with complete information first, and then deal with things with incomplete information.
(6) Do the scheduled things first, and then do the unscheduled things.
(7) Do the planned things first, and then do the unplanned things.
(8) Do other people's things first, and then do your own thing.
(9) Do urgent things first, and then do things that are not urgent.
(10) Do interesting things first, and then do boring things.
(1 1) Do what is easy to finish or come to an end first, and then do the whole thing that is difficult to finish or come to an end.
(12) Do what you respect or have immediate interests, and then do what you don't respect or have immediate interests.
(13) Do what happened first, and then do what didn't happen.
Obviously, all the above standards do not meet the requirements of efficient working methods.
Work is goal-oriented. In a series of to-do items based on achieving goals, which items should be dealt with first? What things should be postponed or even left unattended?
Mckinsey's answer to this question is: we should prioritize things according to their "importance". The so-called "importance" refers to the contribution to achieving the goal. The more important things that help to achieve the goal, the more priority should be given; The more meaningless and unimportant things are to achieve the goal, the more they should be postponed. To put it simply, it is the principle of "whether what I am doing now brings me closer to my goal" to judge the priorities of things.
At McKinsey, everyone has developed the thinking habit and working method of "acting according to the importance of things". Before starting every job, we are always used to figuring out what is important, what is secondary and what is irrelevant, no matter whether they are urgent or not. This is true for every job, every day's work, and even a work plan for a year or more.
Among the thirteen criteria for determining priorities mentioned above, the ninth one is probably the most dominant one for us-"Do urgent things first, then do things that are not urgent". Generally, employees with low efficiency spend 80% of their time and energy on "urgent matters" every day. In other words, people are used to deciding priorities according to the "urgency" of things, rather than measuring the "importance" of things first. According to this line of thinking, they tend to divide their daily tasks into the following three levels:
(1) What must be done today (that is, the most urgent thing).
(2) What to do today (just something urgent).
(3) What can be done today (that is, what is not urgent).
Unfortunately, in most cases, the more important things are, the less urgent they are. For example, making suggestions to the superior to improve the operation mode, long-term goal planning, and even personal physical examination are often postponed indefinitely because they are not urgent (such as non-stop phone calls and reports that need to be completed immediately). Therefore, at McKinsey & Company, the first magic weapon we tell new employees is to do important things, not urgent things. This is also one of the essences of McKinsey's excellent working methods.
The concept of carefully setting priorities instead of doing urgent things is so important, but it is often forgotten by us. We must make this important concept our work habit. When we start a job, we should first make ourselves understand what is the most important and what we should pay the greatest attention to.
It is helpful for us to form such a habit by carefully determining the priorities of things. Before deciding what to do every year or every day, you must have a more comprehensive view of how you should use your time. To do this, you must ask yourself four questions:
1? Where am I from and where am I going?
Each of us shoulders a heavy responsibility. Although I am doing some ordinary things every day now, some of us may become the leaders of the company in 10 or 20 years. Great entrepreneurs and scientists. So, the first question we have to solve is, what do we want to do in the future? Only in this way can we keep working towards this goal and abandon everything that has nothing to do with ourselves.
2? What do I need to do?
To prioritize, you should know what you need to do. There will always be some tasks that you must complete. It is important that you distinguish between a task that must be completed and one that must be completed by you. These two situations are different. What you want to do, but you don't have to do it yourself, you can entrust others to do it, and you are only responsible for supervising its completion.
3? What can give me the highest return?
People should concentrate their time and energy on things that can give them the highest return, that is, things that will do better than others. In this regard, we use Pareto law to guide ourselves: people should spend 80% of their time doing things that can bring the highest return, and 20% of their time doing other things, so that time is the most strategic.
4? What can give me the greatest satisfaction?
Some people think that what can bring the highest return will definitely give them the greatest satisfaction. But not everything is like this. No matter what your status is, you always need to spend some time doing something that can bring you satisfaction and happiness. In this way, you will always keep your passion for life, because your life is interesting.
Understand the above four problems and judge what we are about to face, so that we will not fall into the quagmire of management, and we can quickly determine the priorities of things and get the most efficient benefits by the most efficient working methods.
The four levels of things The things that each of us faces every day can be divided into the following four levels according to the degree of priority, namely, important and urgent things; Important but not urgent things; An urgent but unimportant matter; Something that is neither urgent nor important.
1? Important and urgent matter
This kind of thing is the most important and urgent for you. Some are the key links to achieve your career and goals, while others are closely related to your life. They should take precedence over anything else. Only by solving them reasonably and efficiently can you carry out other work smoothly.
2? Something important but not urgent.
This kind of thing requires us to have more initiative, enthusiasm and consciousness. From how well a person handles this kind of thing, we can see his ability to judge career goals and progress. Because most of the really important things in our lives are not necessarily urgent. For example, reading some useful books, relaxing, cultivating feelings, dieting and exercising. Are these things important? Of course, they will affect our health, career and family relationships. But are they urgent? No, so many times we can put off these things again and again, and it seems that we can regret why we didn't pay attention to them at the beginning and didn't start paying attention to solving them earlier.
3? Something urgent but not important.
Is this happening? Of course, and it will appear anytime and anywhere. Originally, you had finished washing and were ready to rest, so as to cheer up. Tomorrow you go to the library to read a book, and suddenly the phone rings. Your friend invites you to chat in the bar now. You just don't have enough courage to refuse them. You don't want to disappoint your friends. Then, you went, and when you came home the next morning, you were dizzy all day. You are led by other people's things, but you don't do what you think is important, which may lead to your long-term passivity.
4? Something neither urgent nor important.
Many such things will appear in our lives, and they may have some value, but if we indulge in them without restraint, we are wasting a lot of precious time. For example, when we sit down to watch TV after dinner, we often don't know what we want to watch and what to broadcast later. Just passively accept the information sent by TV. After watching TV, we often feel that we might as well read some books or even run an exercise bike, so what we just did was a waste of time. In fact, if you pay attention, many times the time we spend on TV is wasted.
The above situation can be expressed clearly with one coordinate.
What quadrant do you spend your time in? Is it an a? In that case, you can imagine how busy you are every day. Doing so will consume your great energy, and one problem after another will come at you like a big wave. If you do this often, you will be knocked down, crushed, overwhelmed and embarrassed one day.
If it is C, your work efficiency can be imagined. Don't think these things are urgent and important. In fact, the urgency of these things is often determined by the priorities of others, and you are always led by others.
What about d? It's a pity that if you go on like this, you will accomplish nothing. You are neither efficient nor efficient in your work. Besides wasting a lot of your time, it also proves that you are a person who can't control your emotions.
Only in quadrant B is it the core of effective personal management. Although these things are not urgent, they determine our quality of life, education level, taste cultivation, work performance and so on. Only by developing the good personal habit of "important things don't do urgent things" will you be familiar with your work. You will make a work plan in advance, review your lessons on time, exercise regularly, keep in good shape, and avoid the tension and embarrassment of grinding your gun at the last minute. This is what we advocate.
Peter drucker, a famous management master, found through a lot of research that those people who are busy but inefficient (unfortunately, such things abound) spend 90% of their time in quadrant A to deal with seemingly endless emergencies, while the remaining 10% of their time is almost spent in quadrant D. Their behavior is just the opposite of those who are efficient, and they basically lead irresponsible lives.
Put the important things first.
Work should be organized, not just eyebrows and beards, but priorities! Only in this way can we do things step by step in a rhythmic and orderly manner and achieve good results. Between urgent but unimportant things and important but not urgent things, which do you do first? You may be embarrassed to face this problem.
In real life, many people are like this. As the French philosopher Blaise Pascal said, "The hardest thing for people to understand is what to put first." Unfortunately, many people have fallen into this sentence. They don't know how to order the tasks and responsibilities in life in order of importance. They think that work itself is achievement, but this is actually a big fallacy.
After deciding what to do, you must start to act according to your priorities. Most people prioritize things according to urgency rather than priority. What these people do is passive, not active. People who know how to live can't do this, but work according to priorities.
Can you solve your problem?