Execution Requires Abandonment

Execution isn’t only accomplishing things—it’s accomplishing the right things.

Much of the Drucker body of knowledge is aimed at making managers and “knowledge workers” more productive. Drucker coined the term knowledge worker in the 1960’s to describe educated rather than apprenticed workers. A knowledge worker is “nonmanual,” Drucker told me, “what you have to go to school to learn—what you can’t learn by an apprenticeship.” The ultimate test of a manger, and the only one that counts, is one that measures accomplishment. In Drucker’s view, execution isn’t only accomplishing things—it’s accomplishing the right things.

The most effective leaders know that execution and abandonment are two sides of the coin. Organizations that consistently outperform their peers are those that discard outdated strategies, products, and processes. Only through this cleansing process can an organization renew itself.

Planned abandonment is a prerequisite to consistent execution. “To call abandonment an opportunity may come as a surprise,” argues Drucker. “Yet planned, purposeful abandonment of the old and of the unrewarding is a prerequisite pursuit of the new and highly promising. Above all, abandonment is the key to innovation—both because it frees the necessary resources and because it stimulates the search for the new that will replace the old.”


ACTION POINT: Seek opportunity in abandonment.