Great at Work: The Hidden Habits of Top Performers

This finding led us to reformulate the “work scope” practice and call it “do less, then obsess.”

“Let’s record our lectures and put the videos on the Internet to be accessed by students,” he suggested. “How crazy would it be to try something like this at Clintondale?” Students would view the lessons at home and on the bus and then do “homework” in the classroom. The teacher would no longer be a lecturer, but rather a coach. They would flip the

If you love what you do, you’ll show up with a certain amount of vigor. And if you also feel that you’re helping other people—that they need you and depend on your contributions—your motivation to excel becomes that much greater.

Show up to every meeting 100 percent prepared. • Craft an opinion and deliver it with conviction (and data). • Stay open to others’ ideas, not just your own. • Let the best argument win, even if it isn’t yours (and often it isn’t). • Feel free to stand up and shout, but never make the argument personal. • Always listen—really listen—to minority vie

The team goal—get the pig to the top—drove every decision and united the team. Individual goals such as summiting were secondary. Pig over person. In one instance, Breashears ordered Sumiyo, a Japanese climber on the team, to stay behind on summit day because she was climbing a bit slower than the rest. The team could not afford to slow down, even

The more you can improve the quality of the debate, the better the quality of the outcomes.”

Make clear to your boss that you’re not trying to slack off. You’re prioritizing because you want to dedicate all your effort to excelling in a few key areas. Ask if your boss would like you to reprioritize. Put the decision back on your boss’s shoulders.

Without realizing it, the team at Skyline Hospital applied a dictum invented 700 years ago by William of Ockham, a European friar, philosopher, and theologian. Ockham is known for a principle called Occam’s razor,27 which stipulates that people should pursue the simplest explanation possible in science and other areas. Applied to the workplace, we

“Do less, then obsess” affects performance more than any other practice in this book.