If
I had to pick one book, to keep with me on a desert island, it would
have to be Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
The book is truly outstanding.
Csikszentmihalyi
came to study the phenomenon, which he called "Flow," by observing artists.
Subsequent to the book titled Flow,
Csikszentmihalyi wrote a book called Creativity.
In
the book, Creativity,
Csikszentmihalyi tells a funny story about Peter Drucker.
Csikszentmihalyi is on the faculty at the same school that Drucker
taught at. Namely, Claremont Graudate University in California.
As
Csikszentmihalyi was doing research for Creativity
he contacted Drucker and asked if Peter would participate. At
question was how Drucker was able to be so prolifically creative.
Drucker replied that he was able to be so prodigious by not wasting his time on
studies such as Csikszentmihalyi's. Drucker
must have also saved a lot of time by being direct and to the point.
HA!
What I am talking about, here, is an old but important idea. Indeed, it is a paradox. The key to
doing more is doing less. I feel this needs to be repeated because of
the rampant pride people seem to take in the concept of
mutli-tasking.
Please
allow me to state something unequivocally, multi-tasking is largely
an illusion. Now, before you blow a gasket (while simultaneously
feeding the dog and checking the mail) let me clarify.
It
is true that humans can do more than one thing at a time. We are
capable of walking and chewing the proverbial bubblegum. But, we are not
really capable of doing multiple, difficult things at the same time.
We can send text messages while driving a car but we end up doing
neither very well.
Not
too long ago, Greg McKeown wrote a book titled Essentialism
and Gary Keller wrote one called The One Thing. Both books are talking about this
paradox of productivity. The idea that we do more when we do less.
If
we want to get really great (and I believe we should all strive for
excellence) we need to focus our effort. It is for this reason that I
do not use LinkedIn or facebook or SnapChat or Twitter or any of the
other distractions that exist.
Speaking
of great, several years ago Jim Collins wrote a famous book titled
Good to Great.
In the book Collins talks about what he calls the “Hedgehog
Concept.” Collins would say, in order to become great we must
crystallize our Hedgehog Concept.
Without
getting too much into it, in order to clarify your Hedgehog Concept,
you need to answer three important questions: What can you (your
company) be the best in the world at? What drives your economic
engine? What are you deeply passionate about?
Again,
I am not going to get into it, for more details simply read the book.
But, I do want to draw your attention to that second question. What
drives your economic engine? The answer will be your One Thing, to
borrow Keller's term.
Listen, the world is much too sophisticated these days. Excellence has become the price of admission. And, we are not going to become great at anything by multi-tasking.
Last week I talked about the fact that Peter Drucker was largely a psychologist. And, Drucker would say that the biggest reason to pursue excellence is psychological. Becoming excellent makes us feel good about ourselves.
So, again. Focus on what is really important and you will be able to produce more by doing less.
Listen, the world is much too sophisticated these days. Excellence has become the price of admission. And, we are not going to become great at anything by multi-tasking.
Last week I talked about the fact that Peter Drucker was largely a psychologist. And, Drucker would say that the biggest reason to pursue excellence is psychological. Becoming excellent makes us feel good about ourselves.
So, again. Focus on what is really important and you will be able to produce more by doing less.
