Notes from Greg McKeown's book 'essentialism'
Discern
- The Unimportance of
Practically Everything
- 'Most of what exists in the
university - our actions, and all other forces, resources and ideas - has
very little value and yields little results; on the other hand, a few
things work fantastically well and have tremendous impact' - Richard Koch
- Do setbacks often only
strengthen our resolve to work longer and harder?
- For capable people who are
already working hard, are there limits to the value of hard work?
- Is there a point at which
doing more does not produce more?
- Is there a point at which
doing less (but thinking more) will actually produce better outcomes.
- Just learned a crucial lesson
- certain types of effort yield higher rewards than others.
- I knew what really counted
was the relationship between time and results.
- What is the most valuable
result I could achieve in this job?
- Most people have heard of the
'Pareto Principle"
- The idea that 20 percent of
our efforts product 80 percent of the results.
- Also called the 'the Law of
the Vital Few'
- Warren Buffet famously said -
'Our investment philosophy borders on lethargy'
- Few investments and keep
them for a long time.
- He decided early in his
career it would be impossible for him to make hundreds of right
investment decisions.
- He decided that he would
invest only in the businesses he was absolutely sure of.
- He owes 90% of his wealth to
just ten investments.
- Certain efforts actually
produce exponentially more results than others.
- Nathan Myhrvold
- Microsoft CTO
- 'The top software developers
are more productive than the average developer not by a factor of 10x but
by 10,000x
- Certain efforts produce
exponentially better results than others.
- John Maxwell - You cannot
overestimate the unimportance of practically everything.
- The Nonessentialist
- Thinks almost everything is
essential
- Views opportunities as
basically equal
- The Essentialist
- Thinks almost everything is
nonessential
- Distinguishes the vital few
from the trivial many
Trade-Offs
- Which Problem Do I Want to
Solve
- 'Strategy is about making
choices, trade-offs. It's about deliberately choosing to be different. -
Michael Porter
- Southwest Airlines CEO - Herb
Kelleher
- How deliberate he was about
the trade-offs he had made while as Southwest
- These trade-offs weren't
made by default - but by design
- Deliberate strategy to keep
costs down.
- 'You have to look at every
opportunity and say 'Well, no…I'm sorry, were not going to do a thousand
different things that really wont contribute much to the end result we
are trying to achieve.'
- Harvard Business School
Professor - Michael Porter
- Straddling a strategy
- Keeping your existing
strategy intact while simultaneously also trying to adopt the strategy of
a competitor.
- A strategic position is not
sustainable unless there are trade-offs with other positions.
- Ignoring the reality of
trade-offs is a terrible strategy for organizations.
- Their idea is - I can do
both
- Noticed that senior
executives of companies are the worst at accepting the reality of
trade-offs.
- CEO of company in Silicon
Valley valued at 40 billion.
- Shared value statement -
- 'we value passion,
innovation, execution and leadership.
- Response: 'who doesn’t
value these things?
- Doesn’t tell the company
what they value the most.
- We can try to avoid the
reality of trade-offs but we cant escape them.
- A trade-off involves two
things we want
- Do you want more pay or more
vacation time.
- Do you want to finish the
next email or make the meeting on time.
- Do you want it done faster
or better?
- The preferred answer is yes
to both.
- The nonessentialist
approaches every trade-off by asking.
- The essentialist asks the
tougher question.
- 'There are no solutions.
There are only trade-offs' - Thomas Sowell
- Essentialists see trade-offs
as an inherent part of life, not as a negative part of life.
- Instead of asking 'what do I
have to give up' - they ask 'what do I want to go Big on'
- Four stove burner -
- Family, Friends, Health,
Work
- To be successful you have to
give up one.
- In order to be really
successful you have to give up two.
- 'Which problem to you want'