“Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge are essential resources, but only effectiveness converts them into results. By themselves, they only set limits to what can be attained.”
This chapter explains why effective executives are needed, who executives actually are, and what they face.
Effective executives are needed to put knowledge to productive use. They are needed to think through and carry out what needs to be done. They are needed to achieve results.
An executive is not a personality or an intellect. Anyone who “materially affects the capacity of the organization to perform and to obtain results” is an executive (5, 8).
An executive faces several roadblocks to effectiveness, such as internal organizational problems and ways of thinking. These distract from events, changes, and opportunities that occur outside of the organization, which can lead to results and success.
Drucker gives an example of the Edsel Ford automobile which many thought would be a success. It failed. Ford had not perceived a major change in what the market valued.
(The Effective Executive, chapter 1)