Want to be successful?
Then eat the right type of glass
Innovating anything can often feel like ‘eating glass’. In other words it’s just really, really hard work that demands a LOT of effort and metaphorical pain. And of course it does, but not in the way most people think.
When people start bragging about how much “glass” they’re eating, they’re showing off: “I’m working so much that I do not have time for any petty personal things, like my family.” While that might be the way to move up at a suit and tie law firm, it’s not the only path to glory.
Let’s consider a group of people known for never-ending grit: professional athletes. This week I stumbled onto this quote:
This came from Gregg Popovich, head coach of the 5-time NBA champions San Antonio Spurs.
Pop - as he is affectionately known - is one of my favourite guru’s on culture and organization. In a league all about slam dunks and flashy hairdos, he stood out by teaching a selfless and unassuming style of play. This has led to my dad derisively labeling the Spurs as “the singing preachers” because of their squareness. But my dad never won an NBA championship. Coach Pop has won five.
His San Antonio Spurs are one of the most successful sports teams in the past 20 years because they focus on more than just the game.
“If I just did basketball, I’d be bored to death,” said Popovich, before dragging his team to viewings of heavy arthouse documentaries. Time spent broadening horizons, instead of perfecting plays.
It’s a pattern also recognized by Jason Fried (founder of Basecamp), a proponent of what I would call “the slow startup”. Don’t go for maximum valuation as quickly as possible, but go for maximum satisfaction over the full span of your professional life.
“Workaholics miss the point,” he argues in his book Rework. “They try to fix problems by throwing sheer hours at them. They try to make up for intellectual laziness with brute force. This results in inelegant solutions.”
The ineffectiveness of working crazy hours is even acknowledged by Google’s top innovators. Ex-Googler Jake Knapp (et al.) put forward a five-day workshop to solve complicated problems in Sprint, their latest book. You might think that means working round the clock for five days? Not at all. “Longer hours don’t equal better results,” he says. Their recipe for a sprint with maximum impact: six hours of work a day, with one full hour of lunch in-between.
Adam Grant, one of my favorite authors on effective creativity, takes it one step further: not only should you limit your hours at work, you should procrastinate.
“Great originals are great procrastinators,” he says in his book Originals.
In his research he finds that procrastination is crucial to let ideas incubate and to surprise yourself.
So you’re wondering: “Is this guy encouraging me to be lazy?”
Of course not, maybe you should even work more. But whatever you do, make sure to do it right: challenge yourself to be as creative and effective in as little time as necessary.
Even though burying yourself with all kinds of tasks while you’re at your desk may feel productive and make you look tough in the eyes of some colleagues, it doesn’t work in the long term (unless you were planning to self-medicate).
So what to do with all the guilt-free extra time you have now? Of course, Coach Pop has the answer:
Preach it Pop.
Mats Siffels is partner at Professional Rebel. He’s also a master in strategy and wants to share the tools and tips to help people drive change in their working and daily lives. He draws inspiration from diverse group of people including NBA coach Gregg Popovich, Grammy-nominated trumpeter Christian Scott and Italian restaurateur Massimo Bottura.
Get in touch with Mats: LinkedIn | Twitter
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