Great at Work: The Hidden Habits of Top Performers

“Sometimes I’ll talk to folks in advance of a meeting, saying ‘Hey we’re going to have this meeting, I know you have a particular viewpoint, I think it’s very important that it gets heard, I’d like to make sure you share it with the group.’ ”

As economics Nobel-laureate Herbert Simon quipped, “A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.”

Collaboration means working with people over whom you have no formal authority. To motivate and excite them, you can do what Mike did and articulate a compelling unifying goal.

When you work smart, you select a tiny set of priorities and make huge efforts in those chosen areas (what I call the work scope practice). You focus on creating value, not just reaching preset goals (targeting). You eschew mindless repetition in favor of better skills practice (quality learning). You seek roles that match your passion with a stron

what Ericsson coined deliberate practice. Individuals who progress the most meticulously assess outcomes, solicit feedback based on known standards of excellence, and strive to correct tiny flaws that the feedback has uncovered.

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

Trust is a key issue in collaboration. We can define trust as people’s confidence that colleagues will deliver the high-quality work expected of them, on time, every time.

The first is that we should increase the scope of our activities, pursuing multiple responsibilities and options, like taking five transportation methods to the South Pole. We believe that by taking on more tasks, we accomplish more and improve our performance. “Doing more,” as we shall see, is usually a flawed strategy.

A team can’t fight well unless it encompasses diverse viewpoints.