being funny

How effective is humor as a leadership tool?

Being funny is one of the ultimate weapons a person can have in human society. It might even compete with being really good-looking.

Daniel McGinn and Jerry Seinfeld

"Life’s Work: An Interview with Jerry Seinfeld" by Daniel McGinn. Harvard Business Review. January-February 2017.

the right way is the hard way

You and Larry David wrote Seinfeld together, without a traditional writers’ room, and burnout was one reason you stopped. Was there a more sustainable way to do it? Could McKinsey or someone have helped you find a better model?

Who’s McKinsey?

It’s a consulting firm.

Are they funny?

No.

Then I don’t need them. If you’re efficient, you’re doing it the wrong way. The right way is the hard way. The show was successful because I micromanaged it—every word, every line, every take, every edit, every casting. That’s my way of life.

Daniel McGinn and Jerry Seinfeld

"Life’s Work: An Interview with Jerry Seinfeld" by Daniel McGinn. Harvard Business Review. January-February 2017.

set your priorities by design

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.” -  Viktor Frankl

The great and unfortunate reality of life is there are vastly more things expected of us, asked of us, and hoped for by us than we can possibly do with our limited time and resources. 

It is tempting to prioritize everything. But when we do this, we end up having no priorities. Instead, we find ourselves prioritizing whatever is in front of us.

This undisciplined approach leads to our priorities being set by default. The antidote, of course, is to set your priorities by design. 

Here are three steps (and the questions to ask) that can help you when you are trying to prioritize. They work when applied to your business, your career, or your family:

1. Realize I can’t do everything. (What’s Important to me?)
2. Focus on areas where I can do the most good. (Where will my effort be best spent?) 
3. List possible actions I can take that will make a difference. (What can I do?)

When we focus on just a few important things, our effort makes a bigger difference and is more meaningful. 

Greg McKeown

1 Minute Wednesday. October 5, 2022

what matters to you today?

Do you know what matters to you today?

Recently I spent time with 1,200 senior business leaders. During our discussion, I asked these leaders, "Who here today spent 10 minutes making a list of what matters to you and put it in priority order before you hit your day?"

Between all of those people, I would say less than ten people had done it. 

That's shocking to me. 

Greg McKeown

1 Habit That Will Change Your Day by Greg McKeown. The Essentialist weekly newsletter. September 28, 2022

a change imposed is a change opposed

The further we went into our organization, the more people we found who felt they had less power. They were understandably more afraid of what the change imposed from above might do to them. So they resisted change. 

In short, a change imposed is a change opposed. 

Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life, by Dr. Spencer Johnson. Penguin Publishing Group. 1998. p. 91