Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Curiously, and overstating the point in order to make it, the pursuit of success can be a catalyst for failure. Put another way, success can distract us from focusing on the essential things that produce success in the first place. We can see this everywhere around us. In his book How the Mighty Fall, Jim Collins explores what went wrong in compani

A powerful essential intent inspires people partially because it is concrete enough to answer the question, “How will we know when we have succeeded?”

It supports the sentiment attributed to Lao Tzu: “In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.”

Essentialism is not about how to get more things done; it’s about how to get the right things done. It doesn’t mean just doing less for the sake of less either. It is about making the wisest possible investment of your time and energy in order to operate at our highest point of contribution by doing only what is essential.

This was illustrated brilliantly to me by Professor Bill Meehan, who spent thirty years with McKinsey advising CEOs and senior leaders on strategy and now teaches a class called “The Strategic Management of Nonprofits” at the Stanford School of Business.

The question is this: What is the “slowest hiker” in your job or your life? What is the obstacle that is keeping you back from achieving what really matters to you? By systematically identifying and removing this “constraint” you’ll be able to significantly reduce the friction keeping you from executing what is essential.

An essential intent, on the other hand, is both inspirational and concrete, both meaningful and measurable.

You can think of this as the 90 Percent Rule, and it’s one you can apply to just about every decision or dilemma. As you evaluate an option, think about the single most important criterion for that decision, and then simply give the option a score between 0 and 100. If you rate it any lower than 90 percent, then automatically change the rating to 0

Working hard is important. But more effort does not necessarily yield more results. “Less but better” does.