The Fortune Series
You might have caught the Fortune Magazine piece by Cait Murphy that featured 12 successful individuals at work. It was called Secrets of Greatness: How I Work. The article presents a gallery of leaders and their work secrets, including those of Marissa Mayer of Google, Howard Schultz of Starbucks, Wynton Marsalis of the Lincoln Center, and Judge Richard Posner of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, Chicago. That was followed later by How I Work: Bill Gates.
After I read these articles, I filed them aside. I thought maybe I might find a use for some detail from the profiles some day. I didn’t know what, and I didn’t know why.
How Other People Work
Apparently, some folks thought this model was worth exploring. They added to it. Here are two more and one that won’t be happening:
- How I Work: Matt Haughey
- How I Work: Steve Rubel
- It could be my “different drummer” flaring up, but I won’t be posting about how I work. If nothing else the word, greatness, in the title stops me cold. I’m the nice one. Secrets of Niceness: How I Work doesn’t seem to pack the same punch.
Though each profile was only a few paragraphs, I kept wondering, “What am I supposed to learn from this?” I needed something, so I have figured one out. I found a “Liz answer” to the question of how to filter and use this kind of information to build a business and a brand.
Why the Heck Do I Care?
It never hurts to take a peek at how other people work, especially if those other people are anything like our customers, in any way. Here are a few reasons why I’ll keep reading those profiles and why I passed them on to you.
- The key reason is to build my database. I read them because there are so many of them. One is nothing, but a bunch allows me to see a pattern. Information is always good. Patterns are far better.
- I can see what there is about what I do that many other people also do. I can confirm and test assumptions that I might not even know I have.
- Likewise, I can see what many other people do that I’ve never even thought about. The key phrase here is “many other people.” I can find out what I’ve been totally blind to.
- I can get ideas about things I want to write about. One detail about one person in a profile can send me off on a whole series of articles that I might want to pursue.
- Personal profiles can help me put a face on my customers, help me think of them as individuals and people.
The patterns that I see in profiles are things my customers are probably doing every day. I’m always looking for opportunities to stretch my brain and my thinking in this way. I care about reading these profiles because I care about how my customers think.
Tell me if you had any surprises reading through the profiled days you find here. Why do you read the “How I Work” kinds of articles? What was the last thing that you picked up and used from one of them?
–ME “Liz” Strauss
UPDATE: Claire Tompkins at Productivity Goal will be posting the inner workings of my head a little later today, around 4 pm. Chicago time. Look for it. Don’t get too fearful. It’s my favorite work habits, not how my brain works. (She didn’t want her blog to explode.)
Related articles
The 10 Skills Most Critical to Your Future
Why Dave Barry and Liz Donââ¬â¢t Get Writerââ¬â¢s Block
Customer Think Articles on the SUCCESSFUL SERIES Page
Fascinating article. I sent it to my sister who’s a high level exec in one of the big online companies. I think it’ll help her feel that she’s not the only one slogging away and maybe get an idea or two about how to handle her everyday schedule.
As for why I like to read them…. I’m just plain nosy. I also like to imagine what it might have been like had I chosen to go for a high power career instead of a simple problogging one.
Hi again!
Gee, I’m thrilled that you shared this with your sister.
I had the high power career, maybe that’s why I don’t care about that aspect of reading them. Emails for hours at home hold no magic for me. Now when I do them it’s because I want to not because they’re part of what I didn’t really sign up for.
I’m laughing because you used these words simple problogging to describe your career. I know there’s nothing simple about all of the work you do. You juggle more than any one of the folks in these profiles.
What I was EXPECTING to get out of the article were a few good hints on how successful people work that I could apply to my life.
What I GOT was a whole bunch of people making a ton of money who clearly couldn’t organize themselves out of a paper bag (except Bill Gross – doing Yoga every day is a good thing since he has enough performance to not get fired for doing it…).
The two-paragraph “huh?” post is in my blog here:
http://www.scotherrick.com/bizblog/2006/3/23/how-people-work-this-is-success.html
The more interesting thing to me is the question of how they became SUCCESSFUL, since how they work clearly isn’t how they did it.
And the need of clean, clear, and crisp administrative help they must have for organization is easy to see.
The only thing I got out of the article was that I was much better organized than those in the article – but not as successful as they were – if Fortune is where you want to end up being…
Scot
I usually start those “day in a life” articles with the idea in mind that they were done to take up space in a magazine. “The Essence of Greatness” is not found in the details of my day . . . I don’t care who you are.
Greatness is a Big Picture thing, to me at least.
I hear you, Scot. I had to find a reason that reading them had value. It’s a quirk of mine. I had to see wasted paper.
I am compelled to see wasted paper.
I am compelled to try and be better organized.
I am compelled to try and do my work simpler and better.
I am compelled to build strategy in the midst of tasks.
I am compelled to do tasks in the midst of interruptions.
The question is: Can I retire today making as much money as I am making now?
I am compelled to go to work today…see you on the flip side!
Scot
NO PUN INTENDED-
That would make a compelling blog post, Scot.
For some reason I’ve always found (good) day in the life stories compelling.
Maybe I’m a voyeur, maybe I’m looking to slake a little guilt, maybe I’m looking for tips, but they work for me somehow. The more I can get about fascinating people the better.
Might be the right-brain issue…
Cool article Liz.
Hi Robert,
Great to see you! You are, I think, the ever-watching observer, the artist. That would make total sense to me.
Thanks for the comment. i just found out that you can read a little about the inside of my head over at productivity goals today.
My brother compelled me to write a business plan today..
Slavedriver.
That’s a good thing 🙂
Ah, more compelling work. 🙂
Maybe you can write a how-to post on busness plans after that. [BIG CHESHIRE CAT GRIN]
Sure, once he comes by to critique my work, play beta reader on the Net Neutrality thing, and ursurp my computer to use MSN to catch up with some people he left behind in Germany…
He was very emphatic about me not writing IBM’s business plan, by the way – he wanted me to do it so I could have a framework to put your advice into.
Did I mentio he likes you a lot too?
I just finished reading the profiles and only one of them mentions kids and only says he “plays” with them. If that’s what it takes to be profiled in one of these pieces, count me out. My take home message from this piece was: Don’t waste time sleeping.
Hey AdLib,
Sounds like you have a day and a half in front of you in only the next two hours. 🙂 Tell your brother I look forward to meeting him officially.
Hsien Lei,
Yeah, fluff and self-conscious showing off. There’s not a real person showing through in any profile I can see. Bill Gates is nearing the autistic range of the scale and he’s the most normal of the bunch.
Bill Gates? There’s a Bill Gross who does yoga and doesn’t seem too normal either.
The Bill Gates link is later. It was a follow to the profile set. You have to get it from my article. Yeah, Bill Gross has a good name. Doesn’t he? 🙂
Successful people donââ¬â¢t have to be organized themselves. Thatââ¬â¢s one of the perks of success. They only have to know exactly what their job is (talking to customers, developing strategy, managing employees). Successful people have a laser-like focus on whatââ¬â¢s important (i.e., what theyââ¬â¢re being paid for), and they have people they delegate to in order to accomplish it. I should be so lucky!
The thing all the profiled folks seem to have in common is that they are devoted to their work and, reading between the lines, I think they enjoy that level of devotion. Good for them. The only organizing problem I see is that they donââ¬â¢t delegate enough. (Does Marissa Mayer have to personally answer 14 hours worth of email?)
Another trend I noticed was that they give personal attention: to employees, colleagues and clients. Just as blogging does, this level of attention makes them more accessible and keeps them in touch with their worlds.
Claire,
No wonder you write Productivity Goal.com! You are fabulous at looking at a group of things and cutting through to the basic facts of whats going on. Great analysis. Thanks for that!
I personally work like a hebrew slave! 🙂
I agree with you Liz, I would rather learn how NOT to work…
That would make a great pick-up line, Char.
How about you and me go off and learn how not to work together??
I’m waiting until I can be cloned before I can be successful .. I don’t trust anybody but a clone with my Secrets of how to turn a completely productive day into a complete mess and party, but still manage to get everything done with only popping a few veins .. coming soon to an E-book store near your! ~:p
Hi HART,
That sounds like a perfect plan to me. *she rolls eyes* Do you have a lobbyist or two working on the cloning part or are you just waiting for it to happen?
The comments by Claire from ProductivityGoal.com are right-on.
I’ve been sorta thinking about this post since yesterday, since I’ve been fortunate enough to work around (and learn from) some high-powered types. They DO have laser-like focus on what’s important, and they constantly ask themselves, “What is the best use of my time right now?” They do not fritter away their time, and they get the same 24 hours as the rest of us.
They also ask themselves, “What is the talent or capability that only I can provide this business or organization?” Then, without getting sidetracked, they deliver that talent at full intensity, and that is what makes their company special/successful.
Ever heard of Covey’s dictum “sharpen the saw?” I was impressed by how the CEOs keep themselves sharp physically and mentally; they pay attention to what they eat and they exercise. They apply self-discipline to everything that they do, including what they put in their mouth and how they take care of their body.
Yes, I’m sure that some were appalled that many of the CEOs don’t deal with email and other electronica. Why should they? For many of them (and many of us if we’d be honest) it’s a time sump, a rathole. Their talent does not need to be spent looking at (often useless) piles of email or goofing off on the Web (like I’m doing, which is why I’m not CEO.) They prefer face time or phone time with actual people, and they prefer time to fully focus their considerable brainpower on their job. The “nattering nabobs” of little babbling trons, YouTube and CrackBerries wastes their valuable time.
And if a pen and index card in your pocket is your organizational system and it works for you, what’s wrong with that?
I think that some have become overly enthralled with technology; never forget that it is only a TOOL for human communication. Being always on, always connected, is not anything great in and of itself.
Thanks for the post, Liz.
Well said, Sheila!
You reminded of a statement a company president once said to me, “I make coffee when I get here in the morning and that’s all. After that I figure I’m a very expensive coffee maker.”
It’s all in how you look at things sometimes. We’re constantly challenged to reach our hands inside of our heads — to pull back the edges and stretch our minds.