Essentialism

This one felt a lot like a business self-help book, which it is, but also felt like it had a lot of truth to it. Like a true business self-help book though, it contains a lot of "look at this CEO, using our ideas and being successful"-type of paragraphs. I'm never convinced about how true those testimonials can be. You can't just break it down to a few managing techniques and that's it, now your company is successful.

The writing was rather good in most parts, can't deny that. The comparison of sentences describing nonessentialists and essentialists was a bit on the nose, they always rubbed me the wrong way. I get the idea, you don't have to dumb it down even more. Other than that, it's just the idea of minimalism + don't spread out too much, broken down a bit too granular. It's the thoughts that automatically come to mind, when you think about sticking to the essentials, but much longer and in a book. Essentially, essentialism not essentially described.

I don't know if I would recommend this book, it was good, but know what you are getting yourself into.

Greg McKeown's easy-to-read tome on 'Essentialism' is a field manual - a guide for the busy manager or multi-tasker who is poor at saying no to commitments, and who erroneously believes we can do it all. Reading this book is a valuable use of time for the new manager, or the seasoned leader who finds their success has bred too many different projects.



The overarching frame of reference is that there are two types of managerial and leadership behaviour (the book equivocates management and leadership together) - Essentialist and Non-Essentialist, and that effectiveness is the product only of the former.



The book is well structured and each chapter clearly articulates an aspect of being 'non-essential' - illustrating the consequences with (at times, kitsch) anecdotes. The solution is then provided, in the form of take-away behaviours that can be practised over time.



This book would have been improved with the addition of the following artefacts:



- A wall guide or infographic contrasting the 'Essentialist' and 'Non-Essentialist' behaviours for easy reference and to refer back to



- A maturity model or similar allowing the fledgling leader to self-rate their behaviours



I also found this book lacking in solid empirical research; much of the narrative is fleshed with anecdotal rather than research or evidence-based information, which detracts overall from the credibility of the book.