Mostly "What Works" focuses on either Why Organizations Thrive  and Why Organizations Go Off Course, both of which detail lessons I learned while growing the Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV), buttressed by my observations of dozens of other groups both in Oregon and across the country.

This edition I'm taking one of my regular "book review" detours.   The Effective Executive: The Definitive Guide to Getting the Right Things Done, by Peter Drucker, was first published in 1967.  

It may seem odd to read and review a management book written nearly 50 years ago.  

Indeed, I often found myself rolling my eyes at some of what Drucker wrote because times have changed so dramatically. The section on how computers were going to change management was particularly funny.

Yet, with that said, I was also struck by how cogent the book was at identifying key issues facing executives and how convincing his case was for what practices an executive should follow if he or she wishes to become "effective." This was true both for those practices that matched my own thinking and for those that have made me rethink how I behave. As much as the world has changed since 1967, human nature hasn't.

Of course, it also begs the question: how much of this is relevant to the nonprofit context where I'm usually engaged. Drucker mostly writes about large business institutions, although he's quick to suggest implications for government and other large nonprofit institutions (he tends to cite hospitals as a repeated example).

In the end, I think the answer is yes: Drucker's advice would be well worth being followed by nonprofit leaders, no matter the size of your organization.

In a nutshell, here are the ten most important lessons I took away from The Effective Executive that I believe apply in the nonprofit context of the 21st century.

1. The ability to "do things right" is not the same as the ability to "get the right things done."  Yet, it's the latter that really matters. Most executives could work 24 hours a day and not run out of useful things to do for their organization. What separates the effective from ineffective executive is the effective better determines which among the various possible to-dos are the most important. And then the effective executive ruthlessly prioritizes and cuts out all discretionary tasks to focus on those that will make the biggest difference.