One of the boldest paths that a leader can pursue is a four-letter word…
That word is…LESS
In my ongoing exploration of how to tackle burnout1, I’ve found that the courage to do less is one of the most uncomfortable and yet, most underutilized levers.
It is understandable why this is the case. Taking more shots on goal increases the likelihood that you score. Some of the people we idolize, including the great Kobe Bryant, achieved greatness by working longer and harder than those around him.2 Moreover, for many of us, we’ve been rewarded for always putting in the extra effort.3
We also fear that competitors will outwork and disrupt us. Or that investors or donors will stop backing us, because by pursuing less, it gives the impression that we are taking our foot off the gas. Or on a personal level, it may just be that we fear letting down our boss or colleagues.
It is precisely these fears that hold back many leaders from what Greg McKeown calls “the disciplined pursuit of less.”
The challenge is that by giving into this fear and consistently adding more and more onto the plate of their people, leaders create the conditions for burnout. In fact, a recent survey cited burnout as the number one reason that high-performing employees have left a job during the Great Resignation. In other words, it’s not just the B- and C-players that are leaving because they feel overworked. It is also the top performers.
Ultimately, the responsibility for deciding to choose “less” sits at the highest rungs of the organization. That said, many of the actions that leaders can take to pursue less (without compromising results) can be applied whether you lead a small team, are a founder of a scrappy start-up or are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
Here are a few practical tips to experiment with:
Make subtraction a norm. One practical tip for projects and teams is to assign a rotating “subtractor in chief.” Their role is to come up with a list of ways to achieve the group’s goals by subtracting, and they can also remind their team members to think of subtractions versus additions.4
Create a shared language around pausing to ask if “more” is needed. This tactic goes beyond the “graceful no” (though that can also be very effective). One practical way to do this from McKeown’s book is the “90% rule.” When you evaluate a new course of action, think about the single most important criterion for that decision and then give it a score between 0 and 100. If you rate it any lower than 90%, then change the rating to 0 and reject the idea.5
Stick to your boundaries AND support others in maintaining theirs. Psychology research points to setting the right boundaries as a stepping stone to people achieving their full potential. What’s important to understand is that these boundaries are different for everyone (e.g., working hours, how we engage/disengage on vacation, how many accounts we lead at once). If taking on “more” means breaking your boundaries or the boundaries of someone you lead, then that should at least be cause to pause (see practical step #2 above). If boundaries consistently are broken, then it is time to summon the courage to pursue less. Leaders can both set an example here and create the space to talk about it. One CEO I admire at a Fortune 500 company asked his entire leadership team to make it visible to their teams that they were disconnecting entirely during their vacations. As hard as it was for some executives, this one action sent a signal that reverberated down multiple levels in the organization.
Visibly stop lower impact activities. After going through a prioritization exercise6 and deciding to stop an initiative, it is important to celebrate the fact that you “killed the project” in the same way you would celebrate the achievement of a goal. This sends a signal to your team or organization that you really are committed to the “disciplined pursuit of less.”
I have come across very few organizations that have fully cracked the code on having the courage to do less (if you know of one, let me know in the comments).
That said, I believe embracing the “courage to do less” could actually help to increase the amount of innovative thinking that takes place, precisely because people have more time, attention and energy to apply to creative thinking.7
Some questions I reflected on this week:
What would it look like for me to have the “courage to do less” next week?
What type of “nudge” do I need to ensure that I pause to ask myself if I should take on more or practice the “courage to do less”?
How clear are my boundaries to my teams and my clients? What is holding me back from making them clearer?
There’s a chapter in Mamba Mentality where Kobe talks about how his midnight workouts became a thing of legend. He explicitly says, “I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my game, but I also wasn’t willing to sacrifice my family time. So I decided to sacrifice sleep, and that was that.” With Kobe and others, this sacrifice for greatness is heralded and rightfully so.
Whether it was in sports (for me 3-4 hours per day at tennis) or in my professional life (working until 1a or 2a three or four days a week during the most intense period of my work life in my early 30s), putting in the extra hours has been one of the main ways that have helped me to succeed. In many ways, this post is as much for me as it is for readers and the reality is that I am a work-in-progress on this dimension.
This excellent idea comes from a recent article by Gabrielle Adams, Benjamin Converse, Andrew Hales, and Leidy Klotz entitled “When Subtraction Adds Value.”
More on this here: https://www.inc.com/betsy-mikel/try-90-rule-to-make-swift-guilt-free-decisions-in-any-situation.html
There are many good tools for team prioritization. None of them is a silver bullet. I often end up coming back to the Eisenhower matrix as a starting point. If too many things end up in the upper right quadrant, then the next conversation is about sequencing.
I experienced this first-hand this week. By my own doing, it’s been a particularly intense month (need more of the courage to do less). I had time with a colleague at the beginning of the week for a creative session and I felt that I was ineffective because I felt a deep sense of overwhelm with all that was on my plate and couldn’t summon my creative juices the way I normally do.