PDF Summary:Managing Oneself, by Peter F. Drucker

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President George W. Bush awarded Drucker the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002 for his contributions to management theory. He also received a medal for services to the Republic of Austria, and Japan made him a member of the Order of the Sacred Treasure, an award the emperor gives to significant contributors to an important field. Drucker’s obituary in the New York Times noted that his ideas on management were so influential that a comment from him could change the way top corporate leaders operated.

The Book’s Publication

Publisher: Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, 2008.

This summary is based on the 2008 version of Managing Oneself. The piece was originally published as an article in 1999, which was rerun in the Harvard Business Review in 2005. It was then published as a book in the Harvard Business Review Classics series.

Many of Drucker’s other works focus on improving management techniques. This makes Managing Oneself an unusual addition to the canon of Drucker’s work as in this...

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Other authors also add an emotional component to self-management. In Emotional Intelligence 2.0, Travis Bradbury defines self-management as the ability to use self-awareness to manage your emotions. This means acting on rational thoughts to avoid being controlled by emotion and using positive self-talk. Bradbury also ties self-management to support systems, encouraging you to publicize your goals so that others can hold you accountable and support you.

Why Is It Necessary to Manage Yourself?

Drucker believes self-management is necessary because our working lives have changed drastically. We are now in the era of the “knowledge worker,” which has altered the kind of work we do.

Knowledge working means that now we can make choices about our working lives, and Drucker asserts that making good choices is necessary to having a successful career. As a knowledge worker, you can, for instance, choose where you work, and for how long you work there, unlike in the past, when workers had one career path for life. As you are likely to be the only constant factor throughout your career, you must...

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Reflecting on Your Strengths

The first stage of self-reflection is thinking about your strengths. Drucker states that this is necessary to success because working on your strengths is the most efficient, and thus best, way to make yourself stand out and advance your career. It doesn’t take much effort to improve something you have a natural ability in, and this effort could turn you into an exceptional performer. Conversely, it would take a good deal of effort to work on areas in which you’re less skilled, and the results would be less impressive—taking you from poor to mediocre.

For example, if you’re already disposed to public speaking, you just need to polish these skills to be a great presenter, and this could open many doors for you. On the other hand, if you’re terrible with spreadsheets, it would take a long time to learn how to get better, and that effort would translate into only a moderate level of proficiency.

The Importance of Working From Your Strengths

Drucker’s advice to work on the things you’re already good at may seem counterintuitive, because you might assume that it’s important to focus on improving areas of weakness. However,...

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Setting SMART Targets

Drucker’s advice on targets and his specific ideas around what kind of target to set are similar to the “SMART” target model outlined by George Doran. Doran said that every target should be:

• Specific: The target should clearly identify a desired outcome.

• Measurable: The results should be easily measurable.

• Assignable: The tasks needed to achieve the target should be assigned to specific people.

• Realistic: The target should be achievable within the current circumstances.

• Time-bound: There should be a clear timeline for all steps of the target.

Doran found that adding the “SMART” aspects to the targets made it more likely that the target would be achieved.

The SMART target method and Drucker’s guide for target setting both agree that targets should be specific, measurable, and time-bound. However, the techniques differ in that Doran’s SMART targets technique works for targets set by anyone for anyone, as they are assignable, whereas Drucker’s targets are ones that you set...

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Second, it can give you another pathway to success. In today’s knowledge economy, Drucker underlines, we increasingly judge people by their achievements. If your first career hasn’t been successful, having a backup option presents a new opportunity to achieve.

Further Advantages of a Second Career

Drucker’s last reason to consider a second career—that it will help you be seen as successful—is one that relies heavily on the notion that you can only succeed through your career, rather than in other areas of your life. It also assumes that a career is something you can either “succeed” or “fail” at, which is quite an extreme view of careers as a whole.

Regardless, there are reasons why a second career may be beneficial, including the possibility of a fresh start as Drucker suggests. Other reasons include that a second career is possibly more adapted to the current job market. Furthermore, a second career gives you the opportunity to pursue a role that you’re actually interested in. Your first career may have been dictated by financial constraints or family...