Less is More
Posted: June 18, 2015 Filed under: Business, Change, Leadership | Tags: Essentialism, Greg McKeown 2 Comments
Greg McKeown is the author of the acclaimed book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. His website offers this description:
“The Way of the Essentialist isn’t about getting more done in less time. It’s not about getting less done. It’s about getting only the right things done. It’s about challenging the core assumption of ‘we can have it all’ and ‘I have to do everything’ and replacing it with the pursuit of ‘the right thing, in the right way, at the right time’. It’s about regaining control of our own choices about where to spend our time and energies instead of giving others implicit permission to choose for us.”
In an early 2015 Harvard Business Review article, McKeown argues that success is a catalyst for failure. The opportunities that we are bombarded with due to success causes us to lose the clarity that provided success in the first place.
His simple rules apply to both our personal and professional lives. To paraphrase:
- What am I absolutely passionate about? In the absence of passion, don’t waste time on what is simply average.
- What is absolutely essential? Once that is determined, eliminate the rest.
- Beware of the weight of “sunk costs.” Just because you own something, don’t feel you need to keep it. Just because you’ve always done something, that doesn’t sentence you to keep doing it indefinitely.
I’m sure there are things at both work and home where I am holding onto something that I’m not passionate about and/or is not essential. It must be valuable because why else would I hold onto it, right? Perhaps its time for a little soul searching and spring cleaning to purge some of the “more” to fully appreciate the value of “less.” The tough question is where to start?
Weekly Download 15.5
Posted: March 18, 2015 Filed under: Business, Weekly Download | Tags: data scientists, Dieter Rams, Disney, Essentialism, Fusion CEO-CIO Symposium, Greg McKeowen, Jeffrey Hammerbacher Leave a comment
Here’s a recap of news and notes from around the Web that caught my attention over the past week or so.
I like Indian food, and now I have scientific evidence to explain why. Scientists have figured out what makes Indian food so delicious. You have to look at consumer price sensitivity to understand Why delicious Indian food is surprisingly unpopular in the U.S.
I have been hearing that data scientists are in high demand. This past week at the Fusion CEO-CIO Symposium, the cry reached a crescendo. Really smart people with amazing backgrounds bring tremendous value by mining mind-boggling volumes of data to provide predictive analytics.
- On the Case at Mount Sinai, It’s Dr. Data (adapted from a soon-to-be released book) chronicles the work of an expert in the field and an amazing personal interest story at the same time.
- There is no shortage of data being generated across all business sectors. Just imagine what can be discovered from Disney’s $1 Billion Bet on a Magical Wristband.
Whether in architecture, product design, software design, or more generally, business. I firmly believe less but better is an effective strategy. Dieter Rams, the designer behind many of Braun’s most iconic product designs (among many things), outlines a handy 10 Principles of “Good Design”.
At a later date, I’ll do a more complete review of Greg McKeowen’s book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, but for now, this article does a pretty good job of succinctly getting to the point.
ZMAB15 