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Great at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More by Morten T. Hansen
candicodeit's review against another edition
4.0
This was interesting book. I've read quite a bit of productivity books but this was still helpful. A lot of books I've read mostly focused on mindset. This one focused more on practices. The most notable advice I took from it is, work less then obsess. You minimize the amount of things you work on and then obsess over the one task or topic. I've learned from work experiences that it's better to work on one item at a time vs multiple. They had a studies proving that working longer hours didn't result in more work done. If only all managers in this world knew this.
Redesigning your workflow can also help you be more productive. The example of flipped learning in schools was intriguing. Having students learn their lessons at home by watching videos and then doing the work in class where teachers could help. Makes me wonder how many schools actually practice this method and how successful are they with it.
If you are looking to have that work/life balance, that's the last topic they cover. Too often have I thought about work while at home rather than spending it with my family. We all need that balance regardless if you have kids or significant other or just yourself.
Redesigning your workflow can also help you be more productive. The example of flipped learning in schools was intriguing. Having students learn their lessons at home by watching videos and then doing the work in class where teachers could help. Makes me wonder how many schools actually practice this method and how successful are they with it.
If you are looking to have that work/life balance, that's the last topic they cover. Too often have I thought about work while at home rather than spending it with my family. We all need that balance regardless if you have kids or significant other or just yourself.
nickmiller's review against another edition
5.0
I thought this was a very concise, research-oriented overview of ways that someone could perform better at work.
gadsdenlee's review against another edition
Author was the cowriter of Jim Collins for "Good to Great".
Not to be mean, but it's pretty clear he's not a great solo act. While I'm sure his information is valid and has usefulness, it comes across as "this is the secret, unless it isn't, in which case maybe it's this other thing that sounds suspiciously like something else I already said never is the secret!".
Not to be mean, but it's pretty clear he's not a great solo act. While I'm sure his information is valid and has usefulness, it comes across as "this is the secret, unless it isn't, in which case maybe it's this other thing that sounds suspiciously like something else I already said never is the secret!".
davenash's review against another edition
4.0
Hansen undertook a 5 year study to find out what makes top performance at work. He's also worked with Jim Collins on his follow up to Good to Great, so Hansen has credibility.
While he frames his 7 keys to performing better as a challenge to the conventional wisdom, the ideas have been around. But those ideas have not been wrapped up together and do not have the credibility of Hansen's study.
The first and most important key - work less, then obsess. Hansen gives the example of the 91 year old three star sushi chef who only makes 20 types of sushi in a restaurant with no bathroom underneath the stairs to the subway. The chef's singular focus on perfecting sushi earned him three Michelin stars not the decor. He also leads this chapter with the story of the team that first reached the south pole and survived, they had less money and less modes of transportation than the better financed team. But since they had fewer resources they focused on getting the best dogs and only sled dogs. The other team was spread thin and had coordination issues - those are the problems with doing too much. Most people who read Hansen do too much.
Ryan Holiday in Perennial Best Seller encourages a draw-down period and a singular focus. Cal Newport does as well in Deep Work. These books lack Hansen' study and seem to rely on anecdotes. The authors seem armaturist compared to Hansen.
Second, the next step after doing less is to redesign your job to focus on providing value rather than goals. SMART goals have come under criticism for leading people to focus on the the wrong the things. The Tyranny of Metrics by Jerry Mueller also brings this up - people measuring the wrong things just because they can be measured.
Third is your learning loop. This could be my favorite chapter because I already took the idea of using a feedback loop from product management in agile development and applied it to work in my own LinkedIn post https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-job-product-management-can-take-carnegie-hall-dave-nash/
Fourth is passion and purpose. Hansen is right that following your passion is terrible advice. He advocates linking it with purpose - providing value. A lot this too is simply rethinking a job to see the greater good that it achieves. Every job helps someone - start with that and then make it bigger. You are helping a bigger goal that that person. What Hansen misses Cal Newport add in his So Good They Can't Ignore you book - you need to have already practiced the skills to go along with passion and purpose.
The next three keys focus on working together. I found these less helpful although there is a general idea that we work together too much in some cases.
Fifth is Forceful Champions. People inside and outside an organization do not make decisions rationally - see Scott Adams' Win Bigly or Robert Cialdini's Influence and Pre-suasion. Hansen encourages appealing to emotions because facts and reason don't work. Cialdini's work is more about selling outside the company, bringing the same tactics inside is tougher. I know that it can be done, but you risk everyone hating you. With customers it's different because you don't have to see them everyday and they know they are being sold. Long term these transactional tactics hurt relationships ,the people you have to work with are not going to like it. It is successful and they will like you less because of your success and tactics. Hansen doesn't acknowledge that as a cost of getting ahead.
Sixth is Fight and Unite, Hansen states we have too many meetings, true, because people are unprepared, true, or don't pay attention, true. People are afraid to differ, true, or if they do it becomes personal, all too true. Hansen gives some suggestions for encouraging vigorous debate and then uniting behind the final outcome. This is what successful companies do.
Seventh is the two sins of collaboration - under and over collaboration. Go back to focusing on value to find the Goldie locks.
Putting all seven ideas together, supporting them with data and anecdotes, and writing in an easy to read manner make this a five star book. I read it over the course of one day. Seven is the magic number, this a more practical and modern 7 Habits of Highly Effective people, which is just what the author was going for.
While he frames his 7 keys to performing better as a challenge to the conventional wisdom, the ideas have been around. But those ideas have not been wrapped up together and do not have the credibility of Hansen's study.
The first and most important key - work less, then obsess. Hansen gives the example of the 91 year old three star sushi chef who only makes 20 types of sushi in a restaurant with no bathroom underneath the stairs to the subway. The chef's singular focus on perfecting sushi earned him three Michelin stars not the decor. He also leads this chapter with the story of the team that first reached the south pole and survived, they had less money and less modes of transportation than the better financed team. But since they had fewer resources they focused on getting the best dogs and only sled dogs. The other team was spread thin and had coordination issues - those are the problems with doing too much. Most people who read Hansen do too much.
Ryan Holiday in Perennial Best Seller encourages a draw-down period and a singular focus. Cal Newport does as well in Deep Work. These books lack Hansen' study and seem to rely on anecdotes. The authors seem armaturist compared to Hansen.
Second, the next step after doing less is to redesign your job to focus on providing value rather than goals. SMART goals have come under criticism for leading people to focus on the the wrong the things. The Tyranny of Metrics by Jerry Mueller also brings this up - people measuring the wrong things just because they can be measured.
Third is your learning loop. This could be my favorite chapter because I already took the idea of using a feedback loop from product management in agile development and applied it to work in my own LinkedIn post https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/you-job-product-management-can-take-carnegie-hall-dave-nash/
Fourth is passion and purpose. Hansen is right that following your passion is terrible advice. He advocates linking it with purpose - providing value. A lot this too is simply rethinking a job to see the greater good that it achieves. Every job helps someone - start with that and then make it bigger. You are helping a bigger goal that that person. What Hansen misses Cal Newport add in his So Good They Can't Ignore you book - you need to have already practiced the skills to go along with passion and purpose.
The next three keys focus on working together. I found these less helpful although there is a general idea that we work together too much in some cases.
Fifth is Forceful Champions. People inside and outside an organization do not make decisions rationally - see Scott Adams' Win Bigly or Robert Cialdini's Influence and Pre-suasion. Hansen encourages appealing to emotions because facts and reason don't work. Cialdini's work is more about selling outside the company, bringing the same tactics inside is tougher. I know that it can be done, but you risk everyone hating you. With customers it's different because you don't have to see them everyday and they know they are being sold. Long term these transactional tactics hurt relationships ,the people you have to work with are not going to like it. It is successful and they will like you less because of your success and tactics. Hansen doesn't acknowledge that as a cost of getting ahead.
Sixth is Fight and Unite, Hansen states we have too many meetings, true, because people are unprepared, true, or don't pay attention, true. People are afraid to differ, true, or if they do it becomes personal, all too true. Hansen gives some suggestions for encouraging vigorous debate and then uniting behind the final outcome. This is what successful companies do.
Seventh is the two sins of collaboration - under and over collaboration. Go back to focusing on value to find the Goldie locks.
Putting all seven ideas together, supporting them with data and anecdotes, and writing in an easy to read manner make this a five star book. I read it over the course of one day. Seven is the magic number, this a more practical and modern 7 Habits of Highly Effective people, which is just what the author was going for.
tpanik's review against another edition
5.0
Helpful, practical, and relevant. Required reading for anyone in the current workforce, as it reveals what can and should be improved within workplace environments to make them more beneficial—and productive—for everyone.
keithfarrell's review against another edition
2.0
Not to be too flippant (because there is some worthy advice here), but the author's main argument is that we spread ourselves too thin at work (and burn out). To "be best" at work, we need to "do less and then obsess."
Which, I find kind of ironic because *supposedly* the research for this book began when the author met a female colleague who was more successful than him and left the office earlier than him each night. But INSTEAD of simply ASKING her how she did it, he decided to undertake a massive research project, obsess over it, and then publish the results. He concludes by saying that with everything he's provided; now you, too, can now be like his female colleague. But, honestly, I don't think he know the secret to his colleague's success.
Do less, my friend. Ask.
Which, I find kind of ironic because *supposedly* the research for this book began when the author met a female colleague who was more successful than him and left the office earlier than him each night. But INSTEAD of simply ASKING her how she did it, he decided to undertake a massive research project, obsess over it, and then publish the results. He concludes by saying that with everything he's provided; now you, too, can now be like his female colleague. But, honestly, I don't think he know the secret to his colleague's success.
Do less, my friend. Ask.
kataboy's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting on the sense it is not for common book in this area because it is backed up by a concrete study and proper statistical analysis. Some conclusions are counter intuitive but the author uses examples very well to explain the reason behind them.