In this audio note, I am excited to talk about the great management.
Part of great management is eliminating work.
Which is beautiful because Peter Drucker said that so much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.
That was his critical viewpoint on the fact that whether you’re building something or you’re working inside of something, what makes you an exceptional manager, or an exceptional founder, is the ability to take a task or take a set of tasks and think DEEPLY about them.
Start thinking about:
Wait, should we be doing this step in the first place?
Because it’s understanding the fact that complexity and entropy are always going to try to enter an organization.
So it’s that idea of, you know, keep it simple, stupid, or the KISS principle.
Well, that’s basically what we’re breaking this down to.
For those of you that are four hour workweek fans, I know I am of Tim Ferriss. When you think about his acronym in it, it’s delegate, eliminate, automate and liberate.
Well, that’s the reason why he has eliminated in there, you just you get rid of the things that you don’t need, and you don’t need other people doing.
So it’s a good barometer to keep in mind when you’re working together, when you’re leading.
How do you simplify things?
How do you eliminate work that doesn’t need to be there?
So it’s actually easier for people to execute and do work.
That’s part of the reason why we build software like Basecamp, or build infrastructure, to say, you know, what, create templates, create simple copy and paste documentation and scripts.
In the long run, eliminating work actually increases productivity.
So it’s one of those things to keep in mind for you on the other side that wants to become a great leader, to become a great executer.
As you grow and lead the way and document a process, go into unknown territory, take some time and start eliminating a couple of those steps or saying, You know what, this is too complicated. But you have to do it in a way that’s sophisticated.
What do I mean by that?
You can’t just walk in and start chopping things off saying it’s too complicated without understanding the inner workings.
No, because then you can press on something in a system that just rip something apart that always needed to be there in the first place.
No, but instead, if you say, “You know what, I’ve studied the system. And actually what we’re trying to do with these seven pieces, is this one function, this one step, well, I can consolidate these seven things to to get to that one step and make it faster.”
That is a QUALITY improvement!
SUMMARY
So remember:
part of great management is eliminating work.
So show up to work, show up to your creative work your creative endeavors and say, you know, how can I eliminate steps today?
For those of you there that are familiar, Occam’s razor:
Basically, you’re taking the most direct path to get it done eliminating some of the BS and in a way that is sophisticated, to get results done.