Essentialism (II): What Is An Essentialist?

In his book Essentialism, Greg McKeown begins with a story about a corporate executive.

It is story that is likely familiar to many who been somewhat successful at their position:  willing to try to what he was asked and being successful at what he was given, he continued to volunteer and amass work until he was busy to the point of being able to no longer be essential or effective.  He asked a mentor what he should do; his mentor suggested to stay on in his job, but instead of leaving and being a business consultant, act like a business consultant.

And so, he tried the experiment.

He tentatively started saying no to things he did not know if he could actually accomplish or complete  When no-one pushed back on that, he expanded his experiment to begin asking the question "Is this the most important thing I could be doing right now?"  If the answer was no, he would decline the request.

He started letting others jump in on e-mail threads, not attending meetings where he could make no contribution.  He started making space for his work - and his work became working one project at a time, allowing him to make thorough plans and anticipate and remove obstacles. He began making actual progress in his projects.  He began to find time to go home and spend time with his family again.  And his performance ratings went up to and then beyond where they had been.

McKeown notes "...in this example is the basic value proposition of Essentialism:  only give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to say yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter."

The Essentialist, says McKeown, lives by the motto of the German Designer Dieter Rams of the German corporation Braun:  Wenige aber besser (Less but better). Like the Rams' design of the record player that took it from a wood cabinet behemoth piece of furniture to a plastic cover over the turntable (I owned some of these), the essentialist is in pursuit of better.  It is not about getting more things done, he suggests, but rather getting the right things done; "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."

The Essentialist lives by design, accepting that life involves trade-offs and decision that are difficult; that design means that the Essentialist lives by choice:  "The Essentialist deliberately distinguishes the vital few from the trivial many, eliminates the non-essentials, and then removes obstacles so the essential things have clear, smooth passage.  In other words, Essentialism is a disciplined, systematic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies, then making the execution of the those things effortless."

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Thoughts and Applications:

What strikes me most in reading this example is that I am precisely familiar with it, as likely are a lot of people.  We slowly get pulled into other things that are beyond our ability to influence or control because we are "in that department" or "we would like to have your voice in the room (although it is never called on)" or "this is a critical initiative".  Too, we are often inclined to help people when asked for help, often even at the cost of our own ability to do our work, because that is how we are raised as a people.

And to be clear, the application goes far beyond that of the workplace.  It strikes me that the idea of having to make to make choices (and accepting that this is so) is one I have attempted to disprove all my life.  I am one of those people that really does think I can do and be far more that is physically or temporally possible; as a result, I often lose the chance I do have to become better at something because I want to become okay at a lot of things.

McKeown uses the term "Life by design".  I like the idea of "life by design", but my application to this point has been "design in too much".  Clearly, that is not a winning philosophy.