"To attain knowledge add things every day.
To attain wisdom subtract things every day."
To attain wisdom subtract things every day."
- Lao Tzu
Greg McKeown starts this chapter by referencing the book The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt, a fictional story written about a character trying to turn around a failing production plant in three months. The book - which I have read and is one of the few "business fiction" books that I would heartily recommend - is a parable of the author's theory of Constraints.
A constraint, in the story, is a bottleneck or obstacle which holds the whole system back. One can "fix" parts of the system, but unless one removes a constraint, the whole system will not improve.
The message is brought home to the main character, Alex Rogo, when he takes his son and his scout troop on a hike. As the boys hike along, they tend to spread out and one boy - Herbie - is the slowest one of all. Hikes become a miles-long event, trying to manage boys at the head of the hike and the end.
Then Alex comes up with an idea. He puts Herbie at the front of the line. Now every boy is together because every one can keep up with the boy in front of them. But now there is a new problem: the troop movies at Herbie's pace. Alex comes up with another idea: Do anything he can to help Herbie go faster, because improving Herbie's pace will improve the pace of the whole troop. He removes weight from Herbie's pack and distributes it to the other boys. Suddenly Herbie can move faster and thus the whole group moves faster.
Alex's application to his job is, hopefully, not hard to see: by finding the bottleneck at his job and increasing that efficiency, he increases the speed of everything.
The application for Essentialist? "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."
The Essentialist then systemically looks at the overall functioning of the system to find "the slowest hiker".
A Nonessentialist does not do so. Instead of trying to find inefficiencies, he is trying to react to them by plugging this hole, and then thus hole, and then another one. They try to keep everything going, instead of asking the question "What is in the way of achieving what is essential?"
How, then, does the Essentialist do this, "doing more by removing more"?
1) Be clear about Essential Intent: We cannot know what obstacles need to be removed until we understand what the desired outcome is. If we do not know what we are trying to do, any change will be arbitrary. How, suggests McKeown, will we know when we are done?
2) Identify the "slowest hiker": Rather than just attacking a project, McKeown suggests taking a few minutes to identify every obstacle or issue that might prevent the project from getting done. After the list is in place, prioritized the list and answer the question "What is the obstacle that, if removed, would make the majority of other obstacles disappear?"
A note here: Not ever "slowest hiker" is non-productive. It just may a semi-productive activity may not help contribute to the execution of the goal.
There will likely be multiple obstacles; it is important to remember that there is only ever one priority. Removing obstacles which do not budge the priority indicate they are not the "slowest hiker".
3) Remove the obstacle: This can take a variety of forms. It could be a way of thinking like "Things need to be perfect before I move on". It may be a person - in which case, one might ask "What is the obstacle preventing you from moving forward (and helping me), and how can I help you to remove it?"
Removing Obstacles - Subtracting - does not have to be hard or difficult. Things can even start small, like realizing which boy is the slowest hiker. But once the process is started, suggests McKeown, obstacle removal leads to another obstacle removal, and suddenly small stones have become an avalanche.
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I have not read The Goal in something like 20 years or more - I remember liking it very much; I should probably revisit it to see how it has aged.
The Constraints Theory is one that I like, possibly because it is an easy one for me to understand: Find the rate limiting step, address that, and then move on to the next rate limiting step. Easy in theory, harder in practice - especially in the practice of personal life.
Application in processes is easy: map the process, find the rate limiting step, and fix it, just like the main character did in The Goal with his slowest hiker. Mapping personal processes or projects can be much more difficult and effervescent.
If I had to make a trial run, perhaps it would be something like practicing Iajutsu.
What is the process? In short, getting the uniform on, practicing, and then going back to street clothes. Easy enough. But what is the process prior to that? Deciding to practice.
I use the word "deciding" there. What would be a better word is "programming", in the sense of "Every day at this time, this is what I do." That removes the bottleneck of "deciding", which too often can be pushed off until suddenly there is no time left. Once there is an agreed upon time, then I just work backwards (to getting ready) and forward (changing back). The bottleneck of "Time" is now reduced.
Next, of course, is intensity...but that is another bottleneck for another day.
