Time to read: 5 minutes
Article at a glance:
- Essentialism is about doing less, but better. It’s focusing on what truly matters and letting go of the rest.
- Clarity of mission and priorities helps us decide what’s essential so we can say no to distractions.
- Trade-offs are necessary. We choose great over good to avoid burnout and maximize impact.
- Play and reflection enhance creativity, reduce stress, and support sustainable, joyful work.
Several of our groups at Redmond recently read and discussed Greg McKeown’s classic book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less.
In a lot of ways, we’ve practiced Essentialism at Redmond for years. We’ve always aimed for the best imaginable, and our dedication to our mission helps us prioritize.
But there’s always more to learn, and this book prompted some great ideas and conversations!
So, what is essentialism, anyway?
Essentialism is doing less, but better. It’s knowing what’s important and trimming out the rest. It’s “living by design, not by default.”
Here are some of our favorite lessons from Essentialism, and how those principles might look for Redmond.
Lessons from Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Clarity of mission and priorities
How do you decide what’s essential?
First, you need clarity on what’s important. That serves as north on your compass for navigating the myriad of choices we face every day. As Greg McKeown says in Essentialism, “it’s the one decision that makes a thousand.” So when an opportunity comes up, if it doesn’t serve what’s important, you know it isn’t essential.
Our mission to elevate the human experience and our commitment to our core values guide every decision we make.
Our core practices like assuming positive intent and seeking win-win solutions also help us eliminate the nonessential and stick to what really works, the most leveraged opportunities and pursuits.
Embrace Trade-Offs
“...Not majoring in minor things…” -from Essentialism
The heart of essentialism is saying no to good things in favor of great things. We can do anything, but not everything.
Life is full of tradeoffs, because every time we say yes to something, we’re saying no to something else. We don’t want to say yes to the good things at the expense of the great.
Trade-offs aren’t a bad thing. (These are different trade-offs from the false dichotomies we often discuss. These trade-offs are about capacity, not paradigms or beliefs.)
The question isn’t “What do I want to give up?” It’s “What do I want to go big on?”
We’d rather do a few great things instead of lots of good things.
There are a lot of partner opportunities, product ideas, etc. we could pursue, but we want to select the great over the good. We want to give those great opportunities the time and engagement required to actually help them be great.
We don’t want to be busy; we want to create impact.
What’s slowing down progress?
“Instead of looking for the most obvious or immediate obstacles, [Essentialists] look for the ones slowing down progress.” - from Essentialism
So often, we don’t need to add anything to a system to make progress. Instead, we can figure out what’s slowing everything down and fix that. We add by subtracting.
The book tells a story from another book, The Goal, in which a group of boys are hiking to a camp. The problem is, the fastest boys are way out ahead, while the slowest lag far behind.This makes it harder for the leaders to make sure all the boys reach the camp safely.
So, one leader put the slowest hiker, a boy named Herbie, at the front of the group. This standardized the pace of all the others. Then, the leader removed heavy objects from Herbie’s pack and distributed them among all the boys. This increased Herbie’s pace, which increased everyone’s pace.
Find out what’s slowing you down and address that problem instead of focusing on Band-Aid solutions.
Our process improvement efforts are Essentialism because they’re all about eliminating steps in a process and even entire processes or practices that don’t add value, and maximizing the ones that do!
Play in Work
“Imagination is the source of all human achievement.” - from Essentialism
McKeown argues that play is essential.
The act and mindset of play improves our executive function, mental clarity, and decision-making capacity. It allows us to explore, combats stress, helps us see the options available to us, and loosens up our thinking.
Clearly, this is a much more productive (and fulfilling) state of mind than stress and pressure.
We completely agree with McKeown’s position on the importance of play, but we don’t believe that work and play are separate things. We try to keep the mindset of play in our everyday work, not just in our activities and retreats.
Meetings can feel playful. Exploration and improvement can be full of curiosity and experimentation. So often, our meetings are about “what if” questions and toying with ideas, which is tons of fun!
We try to create an environment where play can thrive, where we can explore and try stuff without worry of getting in trouble or stepping on anyone’s toes. Strong relationships and a culture of exploration and collaboration can go a long way in fostering play. It’s hard to play with people you don’t know or feel safe with.
This is one reason why we put so much effort into nurturing our culture and our relationships as teams!
Some of Our Favorite Bonus Tips:
- Think of how long you think it will take to do something like driving to an appointment or completing a project. Then, add 50% more time. Things tend to take longer than we expect!
- If it isn’t a clear yes, it’s a no.
- Protect the asset: good sleep is one of the best things you can do to become more effective. (Sounds a lot like Renewal, right?)
- Instead of immediately committing to a request, practice saying something like, “Let me check my schedule and get back to you” to make sure you actually have the space to do the project well.
Something to Try:
Where can you implement these ideas in your own work and on your team? Where can you create a more playful mindset, fix what’s getting in the way, or clarify priorities? Discuss these ideas with your team. You don’t need answers right away, but even orienting yourselves in this direction sets the stage for progress and growth!
