Are you a list maker? I am. I have been for years. Early in my career, I “learned” that list making is an essential skill of effective managers. I just found out; I may have been doing it all wrong.
Last week I read a blurb about a book published in 2013. It won 12 book awards, was published in 40 languages, and appeared on 575 bestseller lists (including New York Times Bestseller, #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller, #1 Amazon Bestseller, and USA Today Bestseller). I had never heard of it. The One Thing: the Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller with Jay Papasan. The whole premise is that pursuing multiple goals simultaneously actually suboptimizes your efforts and diffuses your success.
For years I’ve prided myself on being a great multi-tasker, even as I read the research studies that showed the opposite is true. As I started this book, I began to question my long-held beliefs as I read about the power of focusing on accomplishing one thing. But, as the book continues to reinforce, it can’t be just any one thing. It has to be the most important one thing, the one thing that is the first domino to fall that propels the next “one thing” to fall and then the next and the next until your success is undeniable.
“If today your company doesn’t know what its ONE Thing is, then the company’s ONE Thing is to find out.” Having worked with 25 clients who have won the Baldrige National Quality Award and dozens of recipients of other Baldrige-based awards, we think you might want to consider your organization’s ONE Thing to be adopting the Baldrige Excellence Framework as your business model. It’s truly transformative and leads to exemplary results. Come to the Quest for Excellence to learn more. (See link below for more information.)
Another question really challenged me. “What’s the ONE Thing you can do this week such that by doing it everything else would be easier or unnecessary?” I’m still trying to pare down my to-do lists – for work and for my personal life. I haven’t gotten there yet, but I’m committed to getting them down to three things, then two, and finally one. This will be my grand experiment in January 2025. Will you join me?
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