STOP IT!

Most people would be surprised by the number of things they do that are completely unnecessary. In 1967 Peter Drucker wrote a book that talks about the various requirements of becoming a more effective executive. Rule number one was, “Know thy time.” Drucker wrote, “Nothing else, perhaps, distinguishes effective executives as much as their tender loving care of time.”

Whenever you makes plans you are (obviously) going to consider the actions you will undertake. What you probably don't think about are the things you are going to STOP dong. And this second list is every bit as important as the first.

After Peter Drucker would give a talk, members of the audience would inevitably thank him for the wonderful information. Peter told them, in no uncertain terms, that he didn't want them to tell him “thank you.” Drucker was all about action. And, what he wanted them to tell him was what they were going to do the very next day. Every bit as important, he wanted to know what they were going to stop doing.

If we keep piling things onto our plate, we're going to run out of space. This is a common problem. People take on way more than they can handle. The problem isn't that we take on responsibilities. The problem is that we have a difficult time letting go. It is for this reason Drucker prescribed the action of “organized abandonment.” We need to systematically review our lives and our commitments with the intent of abandoning that which no longer produces results. Of course, this is easier said than done. So, what's the problem? Why can't we eliminate unproductive things from our lives?

According to Dan Ariely, a professor at Duke University, one of the reasons is that we humans are, “predictably irrational.” Predictably Irrational is the name of Ariely's first book and it's a great read. In the book Dan reports on an experiment he conducted while at MIT. The experiment was basically a computer simulation that involved keeping doors open. Behind each door were various financial rewards to be given to the player for opening said door. If a particular door was ignored, for 12 moves in a row, it would disappear forever. In total, the participants were given 100 clicks. Each room had a range of payouts but let's say door A rewards the player with an average of four cents, door B with five cents, and door C contained six cents on average (for brevity's sake I'm simplifying things.) Even though it was against their financial interest, players would waste a click keeping door A from disappearing, when they could have made more money by clicking on B or C. This happened repeatedly and it confirmed people's irrational inability to let things go.

In this previous post (Paging Ron Johnson) I talked about the Status Quo Bias. What I suggested was , in order to become more effective, it's a good idea to understand our biases. Because our biases are often irrational and often hold us back. As I've mentioned, Ariely contends humans are predictably irrational. The reason he can say this is because these biases are consistent and persistent. However, once we are aware of our biases and irrationalities, we are better able to overcome them.

Ariely writes, “We need to drop out of committees that are a waste of our time and stop sending holiday cards to people who have moved on to other lives and friends. We need to determine whether we really have time to watch basketball and play both golf and squash and keep our family together; perhaps we should put some of these sports behind us. We ought to shut them because they draw energy and commitment away from the doors that should be left open–and because they drive us crazy.”

I'll end back with Drucker. Peter said, “If leaders are unable to slough off yesterday, to abandon yesterday, they simply will not be able to create tomorrow.” One of the best things about Drucker was his ability to teach with simple metaphors and analogies. On the subject of organized abandonment he had this to say, “There is nothing as difficult and as expensive, but also nothing as futile, as trying to keep a corpse from stinking.” Hopefully that will stick it your brain, I know it has mine.