Will you be useful? Are you driven by a gigantic Question?

Professor Jim Collins is a giant in the world of Business literature.  Shortly after leaving a prestigious post at Stanford University to pursue a path as an independent researcher and business author, he met and made friends with another giant of the field, Peter Drucker.  The Austrian business thinker was already 86 years old but would still go on to write 6 more books before his death aged 92.

In a recent interview with Tim Ferris, Collins recalled two lessons he learned from his friendship with Drucker.  The first came shortly after the two first met.  Collins had just left a stable and tenured position at Stanford, a move he described as his "Thelma and Louise" moment.  If you've seen the movie, you'll remember the final scene when the two desperadoes drive headlong over the lip of a canyon in order to evade capture by the law.  "I was genuinely scared," recalls Collins.  "All we had was $10 000 in our bank account and there was no going back."  

The author of "Good to Great" recalls his first meeting with Drucker.  Indebted to the sage for so generously sharing his experience, Collins asked if there was any way he could repay him.  "I don't need anything," replied Drucker "but I do have a request - change your question a little bit.  It seems to me you spend a lot of time worrying about IF you're going to survive - you will probably survive.  It's the wrong question.  The question is how to be useful".  It was, said Collins, the last thing Drucker said that day.  "He just got out of the car and closed the door and walked away".

Another gem that emerged from Collins' association with Drucker was more of an observation than a piece of advice.  According to Collins, a careful reading of Drucker's formidable body of work (some 40 books over a 70-year career), reveals the mind of a thinker devoted to answering a "single, beautiful and gigantic question" namely:  "Can a society become more efficient and more humane at the same time?"  That's what inspired him, fed his curiosity, fuelled his extraordinary work ethic.

Collins has unquestionably followed suit:  Look at the sub-text to some of his great titles:

• Why do some companies radically outperform their peers?  (Good to Great)
• Why do some companies thrive in chaos and uncertainty?  (Great by Choice)
• Why do great companies fall? (How the Mighty Fall)

I have always been inspired by Jim Collins.  His insights are piercing, his writing engrossing.  There is a timeless wisdom to his work that few of his contemporaries can match.  I'm sure there's way more to his success but for now, these two nuggets will do:

• It's not a case of if or when I will succeed, it's a case of whether what I do is useful to others

• I am not a mercenary who takes on the highest paying job on offer.   My life is a single and epic quest for the answer to a beautiful and gigantic question.  Now it's just a case of figuring out what that is

Molested by Obligations

“If you live in America in the 21st century you’ve probably had to listen to a lot of people tell you how busy they are.  It’s become the default response when you ask anyone how they’re doing: “Busy!” “So busy.” “Crazy busy.” It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint.  And the stock response is a kind of congratulation: “That’s a good problem to have,” or “Better than the opposite.”

Tim Kreider in The New York Times

Thus begins one of most thought provoking polemics of modern life I’ve read in ages.  And though primarily aimed at Americans, it could just as well be leveled at us here in SA.

At the risk of insulting you:  if you’ve caught yourself so much as murmuring the above in recent weeks you should be ashamed of yourself.  And if you don’t like my tone that’s fine, I invite you to stop reading and go no further.  But before you go, why not hop across to Tim’s column a read that instead?  Click here.

Still with me?  Thanks.  I heard a very sad story this week.

For a few weeks, a friend of mine had been meaning to have drinks with an old business partner.  Their appointment was on then it was off – mostly due, by his admission, to my friend’s suffocating work schedule.  Finally the two agreed to meet each other for drinks a few Mondays back.  The day in question arrived and with it the news that Gary had died the day before in a Cape Town hotel.  Naturally my friend was gutted and is still trying to deal with the guilt of blowing his friend off so repeatedly.

Why are we so busy?  Why, as Tim Kreider puts it, are we so “molested by obligations”?  If we knew just how much of our God-given capacity our busy-ness is withholding from the world and those around us, surely we would think twice before enslaving ourselves to it?

In writing the bestseller “How the mighty Fall”, Jim Collins spent years investigating the causes behind the collapse of some of America’s most successful businesses.  One factor was what he called “the undisciplined pursuit of more” – or a tendency to grasp for profits in a manner that is discontinuous with the founding philosophy of the concern.  Merck Pharmaceuticals was one such company.  An unrelenting obsession with a rheumatism drug called Vioxx became so overpowering that it eventually diluted the real power of Merck’s purpose-driven philosophy and wrought havoc with its share price.  

Which brings me to one of the most challenging blogs I’ve read in ages…Greg McKeown’s “The Disciplined Pursuit of Less”.  In it he asks:

"Why don't successful people and organizations automatically become very successful?  One important explanation is due to what I call "the clarity paradox," which can be summed up in four predictable phases:

Phase 1: When we really have clarity of purpose, it leads to success. 

Phase 2: When we have success, it leads to more options and opportunities.

Phase 3: When we have increased options and opportunities, it leads to diffused efforts.

Phase 4: Diffused efforts undermine the very clarity that led to our success in the first place.

Curiously, and overstating the point in order to make it, success is a catalyst for failure."

McKeown goes on to describe one exception to this rule - world-renowned oceanographer Enric Sala.  Over the period of several decades, Sala strategically resigned from a number of very good jobs until he'd manoeuvered into the one which most aligned with his strengths and desires – his dream job.

“The price of his dream job was saying no to the many good, parallel paths he encountered”

Having digested the writings of the three authors referenced above, two things are clear:  

Firstly, we are seldom content with “enough” – what’s true of big companies is true of individuals too.  When last did you walk away from an income opportunity because there was actually more value in not working?  If you're like me, it's been a while.

Secondly, we are too easily pleased with “good” jobs, possibly because we have never stopped to dream (as Enric Sala did) that the “excellent” is truly within our reach.  Yet “good” is the enemy of “excellent” - as Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “while everything might be permissible, not everything is beneficial…while everything is permissible, not everything is constructive”.

Did the writer of Proverbs 13 have any of this in mind when he spoke about our God given desires becoming a “tree of life”?  A tree which, under the right conditions and with the right attention provides emotional strength, financial strength, wisdom and a mind that’s at ease?

If so, what choices do you need to make to get that tree in order?