ABSTRACT
The focus on contribution is the key to effectiveness: in one’s own work in one’s relations with others, and in the use of the tools of the executive such as meetings or reports. The man who focuses on efforts and who stresses his downward authority is a subordinate no matter how exalted his title and rank. But the man who focuses on contribution and who takes responsibility for results, no matter how junior, is in the most literal sense of the phrase, “top management.” The focus on contribution turns one’s attention away from his own specialty, his own narrow skills, his own department, and toward the performance of the whole. “Contribution” may mean different things. For every organization needs performance in three major areas: direct results, building of values and their reaffirmation, and building and developing people for tomorrow. If deprived of performance in any one of these areas, it will decay and die.
