To be reasonably effective it is not enough for the individual to be intelligent, to work hard or to be knowledgeable. Effectiveness is something separate, something different. But to be effective also does not require special gifts, special aptitude,orspecial training. Effectiveness as an executive demands doing certain—and fairly simple—things.Itconsists of a small number of practices, the practices that are presented and discussed in this book. But these practices are not “inborn”. In forty-five years of work as a consultant with a large number of executives ina wide variety oforganizations—large and small; businesses, government agencies, labor unions, hospitals, universities, community services; American, European, Latin American and Japanese—I have not come across a single “natural”: an executive who was born effective. All the effective ones have had to learn to be effective. And all of them then had to practice effectiveness until it became habit. But all the ones who worked on making themselves effective executives succeeded in doing so. Effectiveness can be learned—and it also has to be learned.

对每个人而言，天资聪颖、工作努力、见闻广博尚不足以使自己成为一个行事高效的人。行事高效有些许独特、些许与众不同。不过，要成为一个行事高效的人并不需要特殊的天赋、超常的才能，也不需要专门的培训。作为一个管理者，要做到行事高效需要做有把握——又相对简单的——事。高效行事不外乎本书中提到并加以讨论的几种习惯做法。然而，这些习惯并非“与生俱来”。在我45年的咨询生涯中，我与众多形形色色的机构——美国、日本、拉丁美洲和日本等地大大小小的企业、政府机关、工会、医院、大学、社区服务站打过交道——不过，我还没有碰到过一个真正的“效率天才”：一个生来就卓有成效的管理者。所有这些卓有成效的管理者都曾不得不学着高效行事。而且，他们都不得不践行高效原则，直至将高效行事变成一种习惯。而所有那些努力让自己成为卓有成效管理者的人都成功地做到了这一点。行事高效可以学会——也必须学会。

热爱翻译，浸淫其中，乐此不疲。这是多年前的一份试译。喜欢翻译的朋友可以着重看看标红文字的译法。