author (born 1977)
Greg McKeown, (born in London, England, in 1977) is a public speaker, business thought leader, consultant, and a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author. He is also the founder and CEO of THIS, Inc., a leadership and strategy design agency in Silicon Valley. McKeown is a popular blogger for the Harvard Business Review and LinkedIn’s Influencers group, and his writing has appeared in, or been covered by, Fast Company, Fortune, HuffPost, Politico, and Inc. Magazine.
From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Up to that point I had always known logically that I could choose not to study law. But emotionally it had never been an option. That’s when I realized that in sacrificing my power to choose I had made a choice — a bad one. By refusing to choose “not law school,” I had chosen law school — not because I actually or actively wanted to be there, but by default. I think that’s when I first realized that when we surrender our ability to choose, something or someone else will step in to choose for us.
CHECK IN OFTEN TO ENSURE MEANINGFUL PROGRESS The Nonessentialist leader is not great on accountability. A primary and somewhat obvious reason is that the more items one pursues, the harder it is to follow up on all of them. In fact, a Nonessentialist leader may unintentionally train his people to expect no follow-up at all. In turn, the members of the team soon learn that there are no repercussions for failing, cutting corners, or prioritizing what is easy over what is important. They learn that each objective pronounced by the leader will be emphasized only for a moment before giving way to something else of momentary interest.
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We discover how even the many good opportunities we pursue are often far less valuable than the few truly great ones. Once we understand this, we start scanning our environment for those vital few and eagerly eliminate the trivial many. Only then can we say no to good opportunities and say yes to truly great ones.