I would like to address decision-making in my book, as that is a key part of getting things done, but there isn’t space.
So, I’m posting here the four steps to making effective decisions that I would have developed a bit in the book. They are:
Very basic, to be sure. But it is surprising how often we go into important decisions haphazardly, without taking an intentional (albeit simple) approach.
There are two types of work in this world. The first is the laborious kind, which I call “work with obligation.” It’s work that we do because of a contractual obligation. The second – very different – type of work that we do is “work with intention.”
When we are working with intention, we toil away endlessly – often through the wee hours of the morning – on projects we care about deeply. Whether it is building an intricate replica model of an ancient ship, or pulling an all-nighter to write a song or map out an idea for a new business, you do it because you love it.
If you can put “work with intention” at the center of your efforts, you’re more likely to make an impact in what matters most to you. So, how do we find (and foster) work with intention in our lives and projects?
“Successful entrepreneurs realize that in a world where you can’t predict the future, what do you do? Act. If you can’t predict the future, create it. Creation-oriented action. There is an academic, real correlation between entrepreneurs and this belief; that is, studies show this is how most entrepreneurs think.
“Indiana Jones is actually a good example here. He’s thrust into the dark. Can’t see. What does he do? You ask: What do I have on me? Where are my feet? Not going to jump around. I’ll take a small step. OK, does it feel like I can take another step? Oh, on my belt I have a flashlight. Maybe that can help me a bit. You, playing Indiana Jones, know exactly how to get out of a dark hole. And these are exactly the rules you need to understand to take entrepreneurial action.
“In the face of unknowability, what does rational behavior look like? Action. You can’t think your way into an unknowable future, so your only way forward is to act. How? Take small steps–not big leaps. Small steps. [Prior point: It is a myth that entrepreneurs are inclined to take huge risks; they are inclined to minimize risk.] Take a small step with what you have in hand. Limit the risk with each step. Then build off what you actually find from taking that step, whether good or bad, and would be nice to have some friends and resources standing by to help.
“Successful entrepreneurs also start with things they care about. The question is not where do you find opportunity, but what is it you would like to do? We start with you. Entrepreneurs are always doing what they want to do, or think will get them what they want. In the face of unknowability, taking any other action is simply foolish. So, given who you are and what you want, what step should you take? Sometimes you might see someone else with an idea, and partner up. 50% of entrepreneur partnerships in their study started simply because the people liked each other — not even a big idea. This works.
“Now we get to the part where the bankers and financial experts in the room will be deeply offended. They have all developed ways to measure risk. We live in a world of affordable loss. To put more numbers on that just makes things more depressing and doesn’t work. How do you decide what to do? Well, how badly do you want to do it. Then you act. Then you bring some other people along. Willow Creek is a good example here actually — take a look at what they’ve been doing.
“Now, what keeps people from doing this? First, they get completely caught up about what they’re trying to do. So how about not worrying about that, but instead thinking about what you’ll do next. Stop worrying about what you want to do, and instead worry about what you should do next. [Sounds familiar — what’s best next!] Second, people fear failure. They think ‘we can’t fail.’ We’ve been educated to believe that failure is a dirty word. That when people fail, we send them away and they disappear. ‘If you fail you go to the desert and don’t come back.’ But in reality, if you take a step and it doesn’t turn out how you expected, quite likely you just learned something that nobody else knows. So for those uncomfortable with calling it failure, call it ‘an exercise in learning what nobody else knows.'”
Solving big problems:
Multiple simultaneous ventures.
With action trumping everything, you get more at bats in the same elapsed time. And greater aggregate number of ventures for society as a whole, taking us all on a journey towards solutions.
Here’s the message I gave at the Christian Web Conference on “How the Gospel Should Shape Your Web Strategy — Not Just Your Web Content”:
Here are some of the things I talk about:
Here are my slides (there’s just a few for this one):
And here is my manuscript/notes for the message:
Most of us aim for the content of our sites to be true to the gospel and gospel-centered. The gospel—the truth that Christ died and rose again for us, and that through faith in him we enter a right relationship with God—is at the heart of what we are here to say. Everything else that we say is founded on this. That’s what makes us Christian ministries and organizations, and just plain Christians, period.
This is as it should be. But I want to take us a step further and argue that the gospel should not only shape our web content, but should also shape our web strategy—that is, it should shape how we go about our websites altogether.
In other words, the gospel has implications not only for what we say on our sites, but also for the strategy behind how we architect our sites and design our sites and build our sites and utilize our sites. It should be behind everything about our sites, not just the content.
In particular, I want to look at two primary ways the gospel should shape our web strategy. First, the gospel implies that we should make our sites maximally usable. In fact, we should take pains to do this. Second, the gospel implies that we should make our sites free—even at sacrifice to ourselves.
And these two factors—a site that is maximally usable and free, combined with excellent content—are the pillars of an effective web strategy. That is, they not only are fitting ways to reflect the gospel, they are also what work best. There is no ultimate conflict behind a web strategy that seeks to embody the gospel and a web strategy that works.
We should take pains to make our sites usable. But what is usability? What do I mean when I talk about usability?
What is Usability?
Here’s one definition of usability, from Web Design: The Complete Reference: “Usability is the extent to which a site can be used by a specified group of users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a specified context of use” (Powell, Web Design: The Complete Reference, 50).
But as Steve Krug has so simply shown in his book Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, one simple sentence sums up the definition of usability: A usable website is one that doesn’t make people think about how to use it.
In other words, it doesn’t raise question marks in people’s minds about how to do this or that, how to get here are there, or how to respond to the information on the page. They see the page, and know what they need to do, and how to do it.
[Here’s an example of a hard to use page]
[Here’s an example of an easy to use page]
This principle is “the ultimate tie-breaker in deciding whether something works or doesn’t in a Web design” (Krug, Don’t Make Me Think, 11). It is the very definition of what a usable site is.
Krug fills out the meaning of this principle more fully:
It means that as far as is humanly possible, when I look at a Web page it should be self-evident. Obvious. Self-explanatory.
I should be able to ‘get it’—what it is and how to use it—without expending any effort thinking about it.
Just how self-evident are we talking about?
Well, self-evident enough, for instance, that your next door neighbor, who has no interest in the subject of your site and who barely knows how to use the Back button, could like at your site’s Home page and say, ‘Oh, it’s a _____.” (With any luck, she’ll say, ‘Oh, it’s a _____. Neat.” But that’s another subject.)
Everything boils down to this: Don’t make people think. A usable site minimizes the amount of thinking people have to do to use the site.
But why should we make our sites usable? One reason is that making your site usable is simply good strategy in general.
Why This is Good Strategy in General
1. If your site is not usable, it distracts from the content.
Hard to use sites add to people’s cognitive workload. This causes frustration and is distracting. Here’s how Steve Krug puts it: “When we’re using the Web every question mark adds to our cognitive workload, distracting our attention from the task at hand. The distractions may be slight but they add up, and sometimes it doesn’t take much to throw us” (Krug, 15).
People are doing important things. When our sites are hard to use, it makes it harder for them to do what they are doing—such as doing research for a sermon, or preparing a Bible study, or trying to find answers to questions their friends have asked them about the Bible or apologetics or such. We don’t want to make these important tasks even harder for people. We want to enable them to focus on their task rather than adding to their already significant cognitive workload.
2. In fact, if your site is not usable, people might not even invest the time to find and benefit from the content.
Not only are you making things harder for your user if your site is hard to use, you are also shooting yourself in the foot. When the user has a hard time with your site, he or she might just give up altogether and go somewhere else.
A hard to use website can cost you site visitors.
And even if it doesn’t cost you site visitors, it will cost you user satisfaction. People won’t like coming to your site as much, and they will be less likely to tell others because they won’t be having a good experience.
Conversely:
3. When your site is usable, everything just seems better.
Usability creates a better impression all around for the user. The user might not even be able to point to why they like the site, but they will walk away with a better experience and more enthusiasm for the site because it met their needs.
Here’s how Krug puts it: “Making pages self-evident is like having good lighting in a store: It just makes everything seem better. Using a site that doesn’t make us think about unimportant things feels effortless, whereas puzzling over things that don’t matter to us tends to sap our energy and enthusiasm—and time” (Krug, 19).
4. When your site is usable, it increases site usage and user satisfaction
This is not just theory. We have seen results of this in the real world. For example, in 2006 we redesigned our entire site on the basis of sound principles of usability. Within four months of releasing the new site, visits increased 99%, audio listens increased 356%, and page views increased 359%.
To this day, we receive a continual stream of comments from people on how easy to use the site is. In other words, usability not only increased site usage, but also increased user satisfaction. People go away from the site with a more satisfying experience that makes them more inclined to tell others and come back to the site.
So there is a strong strategic case for focusing on usability. But there are also biblical reasons for making your site usable. And this is what is most important.
Why This is Biblical
So usability is good strategy. But that’s not the main point I want to make. The main point I want to make is that usability is biblical. In other words, there is a biblical case for usable websites.
1. Good usability is a matter of loving your neighbor as yourself
Jesus said the Great Commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and “your neighbor as yourself” (Mt 22:37-39). The Golden Rule is another way to put that: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is the law and the prophets.”
How do we want people to do unto us? Do we want them taking shortcuts on their web design so that we have to muddle through their hard to use sites? Do we want people making things easier for us or harder for us?
Is there anyone here who likes hard to use websites?
Making our sites easy to use is simply a way of doing unto others as we would have them do unto us. It is a way of loving our neighbor.
Here’s the thing: we often think we have to go to Africa to obey the command to love your neighbor; that’s a rare and special thing you have to pick up and leave town to do. You don’t, you don’t, you don’t. It’s great to go to Africa. But don’t limit your notion of service to large and complex and uncommon acts of mercy, like missions trips. We are to spend ourselves for the good of others right where we’re at: that is, in our vocations. And if you are in charge of your organizations website, that means making it usable.
Wilberforce said “Where is it that in such a world as this, health, and leisure, and affluence may not find some ignorance to instruct, some wrong to redress, some want to supply, some misery to alleviate?” Do this with your websites. You don’t have to Africa to do this. Start in your vocations. Make a difference where you are.
Now, it is interesting that this also syncs with good web strategy. Most people point out that the key to an effective blog or website is to serve the reader. You need to be about your users and creating value for them, not first for yourself. Sites that are about themselves don’t work. Sites that put the reader first are the sites that succeed.
Well, that’s not just good strategy. That’s biblical. That’s a matter of loving your neighbor—of loving your users.
And this extends not just to content, but to site architecture, site design, site construction. Everything.
We should be always seeking to make things better for people. Life is hard enough. Seek to make things better, not harder for people.
GPS: time crunch, tired. I don’t need the added difficulty of the buttons being hard to push.
Hotel room lights: Always hard to find. Last night I walked in, it was totally dark, no light switches turned a light on, and I had to feel around for the lamps.
My house: The hose box. The sump pump. (My whole neighborhood with sump pumps.)
In everything, we should seek to be making things work well for people.
2. Good usability is a matter of serving your user
This is simply another angle on what I have already said. Making your site usable is a matter of serving your user.
This angle also adds another dimension: it shows that we should make our site usable even at cost to ourselves. This comes out when we look at some of the texts on serving.
For example, Matthew 20:28 says:
“For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
We see this teaching continued throughout the NT:
“Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up. For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, ‘the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me’” (Romans 15:2-3).
“Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor” (1 Cor 10:24).
“So then, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. Give no offense to Jews or Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, that they may be saved. Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1).
“Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who … made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant” (Phil 2:4-7).
Spend yourself for the good of others.
And where are we to have this mindset? Only when we do large and complex things, like going into missions or going on a short term trip? Certainly not. This is a mindset we are to have every day, in everything that is before us. And so one of the primary avenues in which we exhibit this mindset is in our vocations—our day-to-day responsibilities of life. The very fabric of our lives and work, and therefore of our strategies and approaches to our websites—is the arena for manifesting this mindset.
Be looking out for the interests of your users. Be genuinely concerned about their welfare, as Timothy was for the Philippians (Phil 2:20), and as Epaphroditus was, even to the point of risking his life (Eph 2:30). This is not about you. It is about them. Many web strategists rightly point out that the key to an effective site is to serve your users. Focus on them. Do what will benefit them and add value for them, not first yourself. That’s good strategy. And now we see that this is also biblical. What secular web strategists have recognized is simply an echo of the greater realities that the Bible teaches. So how much more, as Christians, ought we to be devoted to our users?
And we should take pains to serve them, because this is the biblical ethic of putting others before ourselves. We make our own lives harder in order to make other’s lives easier. We are to take the burdens of the user on ourselves.
Which means: instead of creating a site that the user has to spend time figuring out, spend that time yourself on the front end to iron out the problems. This may take you a lot of time, but it will save thousands and perhaps even hundreds of thousands of people lots of time and trouble. And that’s a pretty good investment: a few people taking time to iron out the difficulties saves time for thousands of people. That’s a pretty good investment.
That’s why at DG we took an inside-out approach to technology rather than an outside-in approach. Explain.
3. Good usability adorns the gospel
Mt 5:16: the meaning of good works again, and their role in relation to the gospel.
Dan Cathy example.
4. Good usability is simply good workmanship
“He who is slack in his work is a cousin to him who destroys” (Proverbs 18:9). Hard to use websites are slack work. If your website is hard to use, you are a cousin to him who destroys because slack work makes life harder for people. Life is hard enough. Don’t make it harder.
5. Good usability enables maximum spreading of the gospel
Because it reduces friction.
This is all about reducing friction so the content can be primary. Eliminate anything that gets in the way of accessing and spreading the content.
Making your site maximally effective for spreading the gospel.
6. Good usability echoes the gospel
1. Don’t Make People Think. This is the guiding principle, and we have already discussed this above. Seek to eliminate question marks. Etc.
2. Provide good orientation. Global navigation and local navigation.
3. Use good principles of classification.
4. Make obvious what is clickable.
5. Use the smallest effective difference.
The first principle for an effective web strategy is: create excellent content and make your site usable. You want users to think hard about your content—not about how to use your site. But usability doesn’t only make your site better and more effective. It is also important for biblical reasons because it is a way of serving your users and demonstrating the gospel that we exist to proclaim.
In other words, the gospel has something to say about how you do your website. Not just what content you put on your site, but what your overall web strategy is.
That’s what we’re going to talk about in this session. We will look at how the gospel should shape our web strategies and how we have sought to do this so far at Desiring God. This will take us on a tour of the biblical and strategic reasons for making your website usable, five simple usability principles that are at the center of every easy-to-use website, the four principles that matter almost as much as usability, and more.
As a bonus, bring your most difficult and challenging questions on web strategy. We’ll spend the last part of the session talking about them.
We Should Make Our Sites Free—Even at Sacrifice to Ourselves
Reasons
Making your site maximally reflect the gospel
Free is a form of usability
Reduces friction and increases spreading
Funding: A Biblical Case and a Business Case for Why This Won’t Bankrupt You
One of the big questions people raise about free is: How do you fund this? What is the funding model to support making everything free? I wish I had time to talk about this, because there are two very cool things here. There is first of all a biblical case to be made for how making everything free can actually create a self-sustaining source of funding, and there is also a business case to be made that shows exactly how making everything free translates into revenue—often more revenue than you would have had if you sold sermons. So there is a biblical case and a business case for free, and if I am able I’ll make those another time.
Our Vision at Desiring God
Our web vision at Desiring God, stemming from these things: Post everything online, for free, without requiring registration, in a maximally usable interface.
This is actually very efficient. I spent 2 weeks I think it was pouring over how to do the architecture for the Desiring God site. During those two weeks, my visible productivity was very low. But the time I invested has saved millions of others substantial time. That is a high leverage activity.
Other Notes
It follows from the Christian principle of service, which is rooted in the gospel.
– First, this is actually rooted in the law. “Love your neighbor.”
– But it is even more rooted in the gospel, because of Christ’s example. And so we have a new commandment, “love one another as I have loved you.”
– So we are here to serve, and our love for ourselves and Christ’s love for us are the two principles that guide us here.
– How do we love ourselves? We don’t make things harder for ourselves, but easier. Now, the Christian ethic doesn’t say: “focus your life now on making things easy for yourself.” Rather, it says, “OK, you love yourself by making things easier for yourself. So now sacrifice that to some degree by spending yourself to make things easier for others.”
Related: See my message from the following year for additional discussion on the nuts and bolts of how to make your site usable.
Here is a good summary from an article I came across again recently in my files:
Encouragement includes the giving of courage, hope, confidence, support and help.
The apostle Paul ties the act of encouragement to the process of building up one another: “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing” (1 Thess. 5:11).
We can aid our understanding of the word encourage by looking at the gift of encouragement (or exhortation) as stated in Romans 12:8. Students of the Greek language indicate the word comes from the same family of words used to describe the Holy Spirit as our paraclete, “one who comes alongside us to help.” Leslie B. Flynn wrote of encouragement as helping to strengthen the weak, steady the faltering and console the troubled. . . .
In Scripture encouragement is often closely aligned with restoration and renewal of Spirit. For example, Psalm 3 is David’s reflection on the horrible experience of having his son turn against him, causing such a rift that all David’s relationships were broken. Psalm 3 indicates, among other things, that God replenished David’s courage (encouragement), restored his confidence (depleted by his experience) and revived his hope. Some of the same of the same results will accrue from our involvement in encouraging others.
A study of 42 NT references to the word encourage quickly reveals this is a ministry for all believers, though some have special ability because of God’s gifting. Encouragement is coming alongside another to offer help and hope.
It’s common to hope for new products, books, and marketing initiatives to “generate buzz.” And if something creates a season of buzz early on, that is often looked at as a mark of success.
At first this sounds good. It sounds like it’s in line with one of the core principles of (good) marketing: create things worth talking about. Unleash word of mouth, which is then amplified by the internet as never before.
But it’s actually not. The concept of “buzz” is actually a hold-over from the old methods of interruption marketing where the organization (or marketer) sees themselves as in control. The reason is that there is a difference between buzz and word of mouth.
Buzz is surface level. It is usually based on superficial realities about the product or message. It doesn’t last.
Word of mouth, on the other hand, is substantive. It facilitates meaningful interactions and is based on deeper realities than just surface factors. It stems from a real emotional connection with the product. It is meaningful.
It’s not that buzz is bad. It’s just not enough. Seek for your product, book, message, website, or organization to generate true and valuable word of mouth, not just buzz.
Jason Fried, co-founder of 37 Signals, has a good article on productivity and creativity with some counterintuitive points. Here’s the beginning:
A few weeks ago, I was on fire. I was working on some designs for a prototype of a new software product, and the ideas were flowing as they hadn’t in months. Every day, I felt as if I were accomplishing two or three days’ worth of work. I was in the zone, and it felt fantastic.
It lasted about three weeks. And then I found myself back at my old pace. Instead of being superproductive, I was sort-of productive. Some days, I felt as if I barely accomplished anything.
So what was wrong? Nothing at all.
I believe it’s perfectly fine to spend some of your time, maybe even a lot of your time, not firing on all cylinders. Just like full employment isn’t necessarily good for an economy, full capacity isn’t always great for your mind.
I’ve been talking for the last couple of days on the value of having a job that you love. If you aren’t content in your current job, of course, the first thing to consider is how you might be able to craft it and shape it in a way that is more in line with your strengths.
But if the discontent remains, perhaps it’s worth considering something radical. Something more radical than just switching jobs. Maybe it’s worth thinking about missions.
I’m not suggesting here that secular employment or a non-profit or ministry role in the US is less valuable than doing missions. Rather, I’m just suggesting that, if you are discontent in your job and the discontent tends to remain, it’s worth considering missions as one of the possibilities for what’s next.
Here’s how John Piper puts it at the end of Don’ t Waste Your Life
The Meaning of Your Discontent
Many of you should stay where you are in your present job, and simply ponder how you can fit your particular skills and relationships and resources more strategically into the global purposes of your heavenly Father.
But for others reading this book, it is going to be different. Many of you are simply not satisfied with what you are doing. As J. Campbell White said, the output of your lives is not satisfying your deepest spiritual ambitions.
We must be careful here. Every job has its discouragements and its seasons of darkness. We must not interpret such experiences automatically as a call to leave our post.
But if the discontent with your present situation is deep, recurrent, and lasting, and if that discontent grows in Bible-saturated soil, God may be calling you to a new work. If, in your discontent, you long to be holy, to walk pleasing to the Lord, and to magnify Christ with your one, brief life, then God may indeed be loosening your roots in order to transplant you to a place and a ministry where the deep spiritual ambitions of your soul can be satisfied.
It is true that God can be known and enjoyed in every legitimate vocation; but when he deploys you from one place to the next, he offers fresh and deeper drinking at the fountain of his fellowship. God seldom calls us to an easier life, but always calls us to know more of him and drink more deeply of his sustaining grace. . . .
Big issues are in the offing. May God help you. May God free you. May God give you a fresh, Christ-exalting vision for your life — whether you go to an unreached people or stay firmly and fruitfully at your present post. May your vision get its meaning from God’s great purpose to make the nations glad in him. May the cross of Christ be your only boast, and may you say, with sweet confidence, to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
It’s almost silly to even ask that question. It’s like asking “Is it biblical to chose a spouse that you actually want to be with?” Yes, of course it is. Why would you marry someone you don’t want to marry? Likewise, if you have the choice (and we do much more often than we realize), why would you chose a job you aren’t excited about?
In fact, Paul’s teaching on marriage is actually a helpful analogy here, because it gives us a principle. In regard to marriage, he says: “A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39). So marriage is an area of freedom — marry whom you want (as long as they are a Christian). In other words, what you want to do is not only a legitimate consideration; you are free to make your choice on that basis.
In fact, Paul goes further: “Yet in my judgment she is happier if she remains as she is. And I think that I too have the Spirit of God” (v. 40). Now, at first it doesn’t sound like he’s going further, because he is actually recommending in this case that a widow not remarry. He’s not forbidding remarriage, but just recommending against it in this case. My point here is not to discuss whether it is better to marry or not. Rather, here’s the important point: Paul’s reason for his advice here is that she will be happier if she remains as she is.
In other words, your happiness is a valid and legitimate consideration in making life decisions. Paul is suggesting that she actually would be happier not to remarry. Again, the issue of whether someone should get married or not is not my point here. My point here is that, remarkably, Paul considers happiness a fully legitimate consideration in making the major life choice of whether to marry and whom to marry. In fact, it actually seems to be the primary consideration in the decision, since his entire reason for recommending singleness here is that this path would, he argues, result in greater happiness.
If happiness is a legitimate consideration in choosing a spouse, then it would also seem to follow that happiness is a legitimate consideration in making other life decisions as well, such as where you work and what you do for a living.
I’m not saying that there aren’t more things to take into account. But enjoying your work and having a job that suits you is a right and good and significant consideration in choosing your work.
Tomorrow I’ll give an example of what this looks like.
Marcus Buckingham gives a good answer to this question in The One Thing You Need to Know: … About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success
Some people will tell you that you need a little difficulty in your life, a little grit; that, as an oyster makes a pearl, this grit will strengthen you, round you out, and polish you into something fine and valuable. No grit, they say, no pearl.
Now, of course, there is a sense in which this is true. Especially in life in general, suffering and difficulty plays a critical role in our sanctification.
But this doesn’t mean we should seek it out for it’s own sake. And, more to the point here, Buckingham is talking specifically about career choices. When it comes to your career, it is not advisable (and, I would argue, it’s not biblical, either) to purposely take a job, or allow responsibilities in your current job to be added, which grate you down.
This can sound irresponsible at first. And, of course, there are times when we just need to do things we don’t prefer for the sake of the greater mission. When it is necessary for the sake of others, we should do whatever needs to be done to serve them and make things better.
But Buckingham is here responding to the idea that it will somehow make us more effective in our work if we intentionally seek out tasks that grate us down — or allow others to impose them on us out of the misguided notion that it will be good for us.
We should be skeptical of this notion, and here’s why:
When it comes to your career, grit will only grind you down. Every minute you invest in an activity that grates on you is a poorly invested minute. It is a minute in which you will learn little and that will leave you weaker and less resilient for the next minute. It is a minute you could have spent applying and refining your strengths, a minute in which you could have taken leaps of learning and that would strengthen you for the minutes to come.
In other words, the notion that taking on tasks that drain you will make you more effective in your work is actually another form of the fallacy that we will grow most by focusing on our weaknesses. For, as I’ve blogged before, your weaknesses aren’t ultimately what you are bad at, but what drains you.
To focus on your strengths means carving out your role such that you are doing on what you do best and what strengthens you most of the time. This is how you will be most effective in your role and for your organization. I think most recognize this; but what is hard for people to see is that this means, by definition, seeking to cut out of our roles the thing that drain us, at least to the greatest extent that we can.
This is not a country club approach to work. I’m not advocating that we slack of and not work hard. Quite the opposite. We ought to work hard, be diligent, and excel in what we do, taking great pains even to do this. And we will be more effective in doing this when we are working in our strengths — the things that energize us — rather than our weaknesses.