Essentialism (IX): Essence Of The Essentialist: Discern

"Most of what exists in the universe - our actions and all other forces, resources, and ideas - has little value and yields little result; on the other hand, a few things work fantastically well and have tremendous impact" - Richard Koch

Most of us of a certain age remember Boxer, the plodding and patient work horse from Orwell's book Animal Farm.  When confronted with yet more tasks, he simply says "I will work harder" - until the day, of course, Boxer simply disappears and is never spoken of again. Like Boxer, says McKeown, we have the same tendency:  when presented with even more tasks, we simply say "I will work harder".   But for anyone, especially capable people, McKeown posits the following question:  Is there a limit to the value of hard work?  Is there a point at which doing more does not produce more?

McKeown's example - an example we likely have made in different ways - came when as a young lad, he delivered papers.  He knew what he got paid and came to associate that rate (in number of papers delivered and time) with what it would buy him.  Then one day he discovered he could wash neighbors' cars for one morning instead of delivering papers for six mornings a week to get the same money but have more time.

Later, as a customer service rep, he learned the same lesson.  When asking himself "What was the most valuable result I could achieve at his job?", he realized that it was winning customers back who were going to cancel. Since non-canceled customers yielded a bonus, he "learned more, earned more, and contributed more".

Working hard, he notes is important:  "But more effort does not necessarily yield more results.  Less but better does".

Less but better may be hard for most people to adjust to - after all, rewards in the past (in the Western Economy at least) tend to track directly between doing more and more and more.  But more and more more eventually yields less and less and less.

Most people have heard of the Pareto Principle proposed by Vilifredo Pareto, where 20% of anything contributes 80% of the results (and the contrary, that 80% of anything contributes 20% of the results).    People may be less familiar with Joseph Moses Juran, an engineer and one of the fathers of the modern Quality movement, who discussed the idea of "The Vital Few" - simply put, that one can improve the quality of a product by resolving a very small fraction of the problem (In an interesting "might-have-been", he attempted to disseminate his ideas in the Post-WW II US, but they were not well received.  They were quite happily received in post-War Japan, which sky rocketed from a reputation of poorly made products to trend setters in terms of quality and technology.  Over time, we know how that story ended).

McKeown notes "Distinguishing the 'trivial many' from the 'vital few' can be applied to every kind of human endeavor large or small and has been done so by Richard Koch (see the quote above), author of several books on how to apply the Pareto Principle (80/20 Rule) to everyday life".  The example he gives is Warren Buffer, who limits his investments to a small number of thing that he understands - and then invests heavily in them.

"The overwhelming reality is:  we live in a world where almost everything is worthless and a very few things are exceptionally valuable.  As John Maxwell has written, 'You cannot overestimate the unimportance of practically everything'".

Application:

It is pretty easy for me at my place of work to identify things that are those "vital few" which truly contribute to making progress.  It is much more difficult for me to do it in my personal life.

Why?  I suppose I could argue that a personal life is much less clear than that of a work life; feelings and personal relationships make clinical decision making difficult.  But if I am truly fair, that is simply a cop out for not being willing to do the hard work of looking into things and evaluating, for each major stream or activity or relationship, what the truly "vital few" are in that thing that would significantly change the outcome.

In other words, I tend to laziness.  And Essentialism, if nothing else, is not for the lazy.