Each time the New Year rolls around and I sit down to do my annual resolutions, I reflect back to a lesson taught me by a remarkable teacher. In my mid-20s, I took a course on creativity and innovation from Rochelle Myers and Michael Ray at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
One day, Rochelle pointed to my ferocious work pace and said, "I notice, Jim, that you are a rather undisciplined person."
I was stunned and confused. After all, I was the type of person who carefully laid out my BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals), top three objectives and priority activities at the start of each New Year. I prided myself on the ability to work relentlessly toward those objectives, applying the energy I'd inherited from my prairie- stock grandmother.
"Your genetic energy level enables your lack of discipline," Rochelle continued. "Instead of leading a disciplined life, you lead a busy life."
She then gave me what I came to call the 20-10 assignment. It goes like this: Suppose you woke up tomorrow and received two phone calls. The first phone call tells you that you have inherited $20 million, no strings attached. The second tells you that you have an incurable and terminal disease, and you have no more than 10 years to live. What would you do differently, and, in particular, what would you stop doing?
That assignment became a turning point in my life, and the "stop doing" list became an enduring cornerstone of my annual New Year resolutions -- a mechanism for disciplined thought about how to allocate the most precious of all resources: time.
Rochelle's challenge forced me to see that I'd been plenty energetic, but on the wrong things. Indeed, I was on entirely the wrong path.
Rochelle's lesson came back to me a number of years later while puzzling over the research data on 11 companies that turned themselves from mediocrity to excellence, from good to great. In cataloguing the key steps that ignited the transformations, my research team and I were struck by how many of the big decisions were not what to do, but what to stop doing.
In perhaps the most famous case, Darwin Smith of Kimberly-Clark - - a man who had prevailed over throat cancer -- said one day to his wife: "I learned something from my cancer. If you have a cancer in your arm, you've got to have the guts to cut off your own arm. I've made a decision: We're going to sell the mills."
At the time, Kimberly-Clark had the bulk of its revenues in the traditional paper business. But Smith began asking three important questions: Are we passionate about the paper business? Can we be the best in the world at it? Does the paper business best drive our economic engine?
The answers came up: no, no and no.
And so, Smith made the decision to stop doing the paper business - - to sell off 100 years of corporate history -- and throw all the resulting resources into the consumer business (building brands such as Kleenex), which came up yes, yes and yes to the same questions.
It is a perfect time to clarify your three circles, mirroring at a personal level the three questions asked by Smith:
1) What are you deeply passionate about?
2) What are you are genetically encoded for -- what activities do you feel just "made to do"?
3) What makes economic sense -- what can you make a living at?- Jim Collins is author of Good to Great and co-author of Built to Last (edited for brevity)
Sarah and I just worked on our STOP DOING list last night so I was reminded of this part of a FANTASTIC book - Good to Great by Jim Collins.
Here are some things on our STOP DOING list:
Stop being hermits.
Stop waiting until the last minute.
Stop sitting in the office for 8 hours without doing ANY real work.
Stop putting things where they don't belong.
Stop procrastinating the difficult stuff (AND the easy stuff!).
What should you STOP DOING starting today?
Full Version: Good to Great - Jim Collins
Thanks Matt.
You have no idea what great timing your post was for me.
~wj
You have no idea what great timing your post was for me.
~wj
Very welcome! It's one of my favorite things to remember - I don't have to do it ALL.
Thanks Matt! Great post! GTG is one of my all time favorite books! Check out the audio version too...great for those long car rides!
~ Charles
~ Charles
QUOTE(Matt Antonino @ February 3 2008, 02:36 PM) 
Each time the New Year rolls around and I sit down to do my annual resolutions, I reflect back to a lesson taught me by a remarkable teacher. In my mid-20s, I took a course on creativity and innovation from Rochelle Myers and Michael Ray at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
One day, Rochelle pointed to my ferocious work pace and said, "I notice, Jim, that you are a rather undisciplined person."
I was stunned and confused. After all, I was the type of person who carefully laid out my BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals), top three objectives and priority activities at the start of each New Year. I prided myself on the ability to work relentlessly toward those objectives, applying the energy I'd inherited from my prairie- stock grandmother.
"Your genetic energy level enables your lack of discipline," Rochelle continued. "Instead of leading a disciplined life, you lead a busy life."
She then gave me what I came to call the 20-10 assignment. It goes like this: Suppose you woke up tomorrow and received two phone calls. The first phone call tells you that you have inherited $20 million, no strings attached. The second tells you that you have an incurable and terminal disease, and you have no more than 10 years to live. What would you do differently, and, in particular, what would you stop doing?
That assignment became a turning point in my life, and the "stop doing" list became an enduring cornerstone of my annual New Year resolutions -- a mechanism for disciplined thought about how to allocate the most precious of all resources: time.
Rochelle's challenge forced me to see that I'd been plenty energetic, but on the wrong things. Indeed, I was on entirely the wrong path.
Rochelle's lesson came back to me a number of years later while puzzling over the research data on 11 companies that turned themselves from mediocrity to excellence, from good to great. In cataloguing the key steps that ignited the transformations, my research team and I were struck by how many of the big decisions were not what to do, but what to stop doing.
In perhaps the most famous case, Darwin Smith of Kimberly-Clark - - a man who had prevailed over throat cancer -- said one day to his wife: "I learned something from my cancer. If you have a cancer in your arm, you've got to have the guts to cut off your own arm. I've made a decision: We're going to sell the mills."
At the time, Kimberly-Clark had the bulk of its revenues in the traditional paper business. But Smith began asking three important questions: Are we passionate about the paper business? Can we be the best in the world at it? Does the paper business best drive our economic engine?
The answers came up: no, no and no.
And so, Smith made the decision to stop doing the paper business - - to sell off 100 years of corporate history -- and throw all the resulting resources into the consumer business (building brands such as Kleenex), which came up yes, yes and yes to the same questions.
It is a perfect time to clarify your three circles, mirroring at a personal level the three questions asked by Smith:
1) What are you deeply passionate about?
2) What are you are genetically encoded for -- what activities do you feel just "made to do"?
3) What makes economic sense -- what can you make a living at?- Jim Collins is author of Good to Great and co-author of Built to Last (edited for brevity)
Sarah and I just worked on our STOP DOING list last night so I was reminded of this part of a FANTASTIC book - Good to Great by Jim Collins.
Here are some things on our STOP DOING list:
Stop being hermits.
Stop waiting until the last minute.
Stop sitting in the office for 8 hours without doing ANY real work.
Stop putting things where they don't belong.
Stop procrastinating the difficult stuff (AND the easy stuff!).
What should you STOP DOING starting today?
One day, Rochelle pointed to my ferocious work pace and said, "I notice, Jim, that you are a rather undisciplined person."
I was stunned and confused. After all, I was the type of person who carefully laid out my BHAGs (big hairy audacious goals), top three objectives and priority activities at the start of each New Year. I prided myself on the ability to work relentlessly toward those objectives, applying the energy I'd inherited from my prairie- stock grandmother.
"Your genetic energy level enables your lack of discipline," Rochelle continued. "Instead of leading a disciplined life, you lead a busy life."
She then gave me what I came to call the 20-10 assignment. It goes like this: Suppose you woke up tomorrow and received two phone calls. The first phone call tells you that you have inherited $20 million, no strings attached. The second tells you that you have an incurable and terminal disease, and you have no more than 10 years to live. What would you do differently, and, in particular, what would you stop doing?
That assignment became a turning point in my life, and the "stop doing" list became an enduring cornerstone of my annual New Year resolutions -- a mechanism for disciplined thought about how to allocate the most precious of all resources: time.
Rochelle's challenge forced me to see that I'd been plenty energetic, but on the wrong things. Indeed, I was on entirely the wrong path.
Rochelle's lesson came back to me a number of years later while puzzling over the research data on 11 companies that turned themselves from mediocrity to excellence, from good to great. In cataloguing the key steps that ignited the transformations, my research team and I were struck by how many of the big decisions were not what to do, but what to stop doing.
In perhaps the most famous case, Darwin Smith of Kimberly-Clark - - a man who had prevailed over throat cancer -- said one day to his wife: "I learned something from my cancer. If you have a cancer in your arm, you've got to have the guts to cut off your own arm. I've made a decision: We're going to sell the mills."
At the time, Kimberly-Clark had the bulk of its revenues in the traditional paper business. But Smith began asking three important questions: Are we passionate about the paper business? Can we be the best in the world at it? Does the paper business best drive our economic engine?
The answers came up: no, no and no.
And so, Smith made the decision to stop doing the paper business - - to sell off 100 years of corporate history -- and throw all the resulting resources into the consumer business (building brands such as Kleenex), which came up yes, yes and yes to the same questions.
It is a perfect time to clarify your three circles, mirroring at a personal level the three questions asked by Smith:
1) What are you deeply passionate about?
2) What are you are genetically encoded for -- what activities do you feel just "made to do"?
3) What makes economic sense -- what can you make a living at?- Jim Collins is author of Good to Great and co-author of Built to Last (edited for brevity)
Sarah and I just worked on our STOP DOING list last night so I was reminded of this part of a FANTASTIC book - Good to Great by Jim Collins.
Here are some things on our STOP DOING list:
Stop being hermits.
Stop waiting until the last minute.
Stop sitting in the office for 8 hours without doing ANY real work.
Stop putting things where they don't belong.
Stop procrastinating the difficult stuff (AND the easy stuff!).
What should you STOP DOING starting today?
1) What are you deeply passionate about?
2) What are you are genetically encoded for -- what activities do you feel just "made to do"?
3) What makes economic sense -- what can you make a living at?
photography, photography, photography
stop shooting so many damn weddings and start delving into the psychological portraits of eccentric people and other dreamy concepts of photography as an art.
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