Rating Qualities

9
Applicable
Eye Opening
Concrete Examples

Essentialism
The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Greg McKeown | Crown, 2014

Curious about Essentialism? Read our review below. While we’re awaiting the copyright
holder’s go-ahead to summarize this book in our usual summary format, we hope you’ll
find our review just as helpful.

Review
Greg McKeown, a Harvard Business Review blogger and a collaborator on the bestseller
Multipliers, makes an enthusiastic case for paring down and trimming your life processes –
especially at work. He urges rejecting reactive decisions. Instead, he suggests making mindful
choices, doing only what you choose to do, cutting the “noise” from your life and accepting “trade-
offs.” The Zen underlying his ideas manifests in his refrain, “There is only now.” McKeown writes
like a blogger, in short, easy sentences, and can present a complete idea quickly. This is an
excellent starting point for living and working more efficiently.

Amid today’s infinity of choices, you may forget which choices really matter.

McKeown recognizes that amid modern life’s endless choice, forces from outside of yourself have
an impact on shaping your decisions. Today’s interconnectedness means that everyone you know
– and many people you don’t – may claim the right to have an opinion about how you live, work
and behave.

Buying into the myth that you can “have it all,” McKeown believes, can be destructive. It makes
you take on “even more activities,” many of them unrewarding. Doing more, less-meaningful
work or even more, less-meaningful play intensifies stress and makes you less satisfied with your

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accomplishments. The author suggests paring your life down to the essentials. Think “less but
better.”

Cut out every task that doesn’t directly further your goals.

Many best-selling books urge you to reduce the clutter on your bookshelves, in your kitchen
and especially in your clothes closet. McKeown points out that you can apply similar principles
to reducing clutter in your life. Consider with care whether a particular quest or job makes the
strongest possible “contribution” toward getting what you want. When you identify the activities
that fulfill your priorities, get rid of all the rest. Cut out every task that doesn’t directly and
efficiently further your goals. That means, the author underlines, that you need a clear set of tasks
and methods. Reducing life down to its essentials goes against most people’s nature. You need to
make a dedicated, concerted, conscious effort.

Essentialists, according to McKeown, vest in three crucial aspects of life. The first element of the
Essentialist mind-set is “individual choice.” Only you can and should choose how you will spend
your “energy and time.” Making the correct, positive choice is always the Essentialist goal.

The second aspect Essentialists control is the “prevalence of noise.” McKeown asserts that, “almost
everything” in your life that doesn’t further your goals is little more than noise. Essentialists learn
how to cut through the noise and devote themselves to what truly matters. The third aspect is
“the reality of trade-offs.” You can’t do or have everything. Essentialists consider and then pursue
only the few, most meaningful issues they want to resolve. “When individuals are involved in too
many disparate activities– even good activities,” the author writes, “they can fail to achieve their
essential missions.”

Nonessentialists believe they can have it all. Essentialists identify the most
productive trade-offs and decide where to go all in.

McKeown cites the consistently profitable Southwest Airlines as an exemplar of the power of
positive trade-offs. Herb Kelleher, Southwest’s leader, makes conscious trade-offs to ensure sound
business practices. Southwest flies only “point-to-point” routes – that is, directly from one city to
another. To avoid increasing its ticket prices to cover the cost of onboard food, Southwest does not
serve meals. It offers only one class of ticket: economy. If these choices drive passengers to other
carriers, McKeown reports that Kelleher doesn’t mind. He set out to run a “low-cost airline,” so he
never intended that Southwest be all things to all customers. He made tough choices.

Other airlines have wondered how to emulate Kelleher’s methods, but they failed to think as true
Essentialists. Rather than adopt his approach, the author notes, they “straddled” their strategy
and Kelleher’s. Straddling is what companies do when they try to pursue their current strategies
while attempting to inculcate aspects of a competitor’s tactics. Continental Airlines attempted to
straddle its strategies and Southwest’s approach.

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McKeown outlines the way Continental created a point-to-point carrier, Continental Lite. It
offered cheaper fares, no meals and no first-class compartment. But straddling meant Continental
Lite did not run as efficiently as Southwest, and it couldn’t “compete on price.” Not having its own
specific strategy proved costly for Continental. Delayed flights cost it “hundreds of millions of
dollars.” McKeown identifies the root cause as Continental’s lack of understanding of the reality of
trade-offs. Essentialists know they can’t have it all, so they make effective trade-offs.

Nonessentialists regard sleep as a blip in their schedules.

McKeown urges you to get sufficient sleep. He writes, “Sleep will enhance your ability to explore,
make connections and do less but better throughout your waking hours.” You are your most
precious asset, and nothing protects that asset and builds productivity like sufficient rest.
Achievers find it easy to keep pushing. They have difficulty chilling out, and that results in health
issues and spiritual unease. Nonessentialists regard sleep as a delay of game. Essentialists consider
sleep a vital component of a productive day. People often think of each hour of sleep as a lost hour
of work. Essentialists know each hour of sleep brings multiple hours of more efficient effort.

McKeown addresses author Malcolm Gladwell’s reliance on a famous study of violinists as the
foundation for his 10,000 Hour Rule, that proficiency requires 10,000 hours of practice. That
study addressed how much more time the best violinists practiced compared to lesser players. But
the same study also revealed that superior violinists got more sleep – 8.6 hours per night on
average, compared to 7.6 for their less accomplished colleagues. They also logged about two hours
more of nap-time per week.

“In every set of facts,” McKeown writes, “something essential is hidden.” The study, the author
maintains, found a strong link between the two behaviors: The best musicians spent more
time practicing, and their practice was more productive because they got more sleep. The top
violinists understood how to prioritize their waking and sleeping time. McKeown underscores that
they excelled through superior habits, which resulted from their productive prioritizing. “What we
can’t do,” the author writes, is concentrate on two things at the same time.”

Your most important priority is guarding your capacity to set worthy priorities.

When a co-worker and McKeown had to choose 24 students from nearly 100 people applying
to attend one of McKeown’s classes, they established a baseline of simple, entry-level criteria,
such as a student’s ability to come to all the class sessions. Then they created a set of “ideal
attributes,” such as whether a potential student would embrace the “life-changing aspects” of
the class. When they had a sufficient list of baseline and sophisticated criteria, they graded each
likely student based on those factors on a scale of one to ten. If a student’s average score was below
seven, he or she fell from consideration. Then McKeown had to choose among students who fell
between seven and eight – not terrible, but not stellar, either.

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During this process, the author had a revelation: If a candidate wasn’t a nine or a ten, he or she
was out. That decision embodies the “90 Percent Rule.” Pretty good was insufficient. Things
are the top, or they are nothing. McKeown found this realization and this method of decision
making “liberating.” You can apply the 90% rule to pretty much any choice or problem in your
work or life. When choosing among multiple choices, identify your paramount criteria. Using that
standard, score every option between zero and 100. Immediately discard any option that scores
lower than 90.

Nonessentialists have criteria that are too accepting, while Essentialists reject 90%
of all opportunities.

“The way of the Essentialist,” McKeown writes, “means living by design, not by default.” To apply
the 90% method properly, he reiterates that you must know how trade-offs function. If you are
sufficiently ruthless about your criteria, you will end up rejecting one or more perfectly viable
alternatives. In rejecting a choice that’s close to perfection, you are betting on your judgment and
betting that a nearer-to-perfect option will appear. Being truly selective empowers you. You are
not picking an alternative that circumstances thrust in front of you, or the easiest path, or the one
your work partners think you should choose. As McKeown says, you are choosing “by design,” not
“by default.”

Applying the 90% rule to various areas in your life teaches you that if your standards are not as
high as they should be, multiple choices will overwhelm you. Tough criteria, the author relates,
remove indecision, emotion and compulsion from your decision-making processes. Tough criteria
force you to think and consider every move.

A Nonessentialist accepts “every request or opportunity,” and has either no criteria or criteria that
are far too accepting. An Essentialist, the author makes clear, rejects 90% of all opportunities. He
or she waits until the precisely correct opportunity appears. Be aware that in practice, this may
prove easier to say than to do.

Essentialists fight their innate urge toward “normative conformity.”

McKeown asks you to remember a moment when someone insisted that you do something you
didn't think was correct. Yet, you may have agreed to do something unappealing just to avoid
confrontation. To embrace Essentialism, you must overcome the fear of appearing socially
awkward. Evolution taught humans that survival depends on cooperation. Through millennia,
people have learned normative conformity – doing what others ask and “expect” of you. Going
against that evolutionary instinct raises internal conflict.

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The Nonessentialist says yes to escape “social awkwardness” and “pressure.” The
Essentialist says yes only to essential things.

Essentialism requires courage and part of that courage, the author believes, means finding the
strength to say no, even though people find saying no difficult. They fear disappointing someone
or appearing difficult or severing ties. Those fears suggest insufficient “internal clarity.” As
you develop that clarity, you will learn to say no when you want to, and you’ll learn to say it
with “grace” to preserve your energy and your perspective.

This doesn’t mean you always have to utter the actual word “no.” There are various kinds of
nos. McKeown points out that you can say, for example, “I’m flattered you thought of me, but
I’m afraid I don’t have the bandwidth.” Saying, “I’m going to pass on this” always proves more
productive than ducking people, not answering their calls or ignoring their emails. Utilize a “soft
no,” like saying “No, but…” or “Let me check my calendar.” Though such responses may get
slippery, they reduce life’s complications. And by finding the bravery to say no when you want to,
McKeown assures you that you will learn more about what matters to you. You want to learn to
respond with “the slow yes and the quick no.”

The Nonessentialist focuses on solutions. The Essentialist identifies and gets rid of
obstacles.

Nonessentialists execute in random ways. They mostly react when emergencies or obstacles
emerge. Often, a Nonessentialist either tries too hard and only increases his or her stress,
or attempts to apply similar solutions to every problem. When a crisis occurs, McKeown cautions,
the Essentialist does not rush to a “reactive” solution. Instead, the Essentialist takes a good, long,
slow look around to learn what factors might be impeding “progress” to reaching a goal. The
Nonessentialists focuses on solutions. The Essentialist focuses on calmly identifying and getting
rid of obstacles.

To be an effective Essentialist leader, McKeown recommends doing the following:

• “Be ridiculously selective” when hiring – As you hold off on any action until you
identify the absolute correct option, never hire someone who fulfills 90% of your criteria. Read
every résumé you must. Interview as many people as you have to. Keep your standards high, and
hire only that one perfect candidate.

• “Debate” to find your true intent – Nonessentialists move forward even when their
goals are unclear. This creates a scattered focus for their teams. Discuss issues with your teams –
and listen to everyone’s opinion – until you discover the single true purpose for each team. That
level of “intent” foments productive “alignment.”

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 • “Go for extreme empowerment” – Make sure your employees know what you are
empowering them to do. Your team members must hear from you what your expectations are for
their “contributions” and what your specific expectations are for each person on the team. That
productively empowers them. McKeown cites the example of Peter Thiel making sure that all
PayPal workers named one priority and pursued only what they cited. This reduced any possible
confusion they might have had about where to focus their energies.

• “Communicate the right things to the right people at the right time” – Use the
fewest words possible to make your points. Never use jargon. If you speak with clarity and clear
intent, you enable your team members to hold on to your message when noise inevitably distracts
them.

• “Check in often” – You’ve hired the best people. You’ve discovered their true intent. You’ve
given your teams the power to reach their goals, and you’ve told them what to do. Now follow up,
and never stop following up. Observe your teams often, review their results, pay attention to their
processes and make sure they know you are consistently checking on them. Reward progress,
and assist your team members in recognizing and eliminating obstacles. Your attention will fuel
better morale, engagement and execution. McKeown writes, “The key is to start small, encourage
progress and celebrate small wins.”

Always pursue the simplest solution.

Applying a pared-down, aware, simple strategy to your personal and professional life, McKeown
asserts, will bring the best results and the greatest progress. The Essentialist understands the
need to get rid of clutter internally and externally in order to find the simplest path for solving
each problem. Let simplicity be your guide.

A Zen Book About Zen Behavior”

Greg McKeown walks it like he talks it. The whole point of his book is paring down the
inessential and the embracing the most efficient, self-rewarding path to achievement. McKeown
demonstrates his commitment to these ideals by writing in simple, stripped-down, well-
constructed sentences that are so easy to read you may have to scan them twice to recognize the
depth and applicable elegance of their advice. McKeown thus offers a multi-layered understanding
of his principles. The first layer is the words on the page. The deeper layer is how few words
he needs to get his ideas across. Reading McKeown, even if you don’t apply a single one of his
suggestions – which would mean missing out, indeed – creates a sense of Zen calm in the reader.
Even more valuable, however, is his convincing message that anyone can apply his life-changing
guidance.

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About the Author
Greg McKeown is the author of the bestseller Öz and co-wrote Multipliers: How the Best
Leaders Make Everyone Smarter with Liz Wiseman. He blogs for the Harvard Business Review.

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