• Are you spread too thin across too many tasks and priorities? Time to prune your to-do list. Which tasks, priorities, activities, meetings etc. can you cut from the list? Only keep those you must do to excel and get rid of the rest.
• Are you easily distracted so that you lose your focus? Tie yourself to the mast. Set clear rules ahead of time to fend off temptation and distraction. For example, use software that prevents you from checking e-mail for one hour.
• Is your boss giving you too much to do? A do-more boss prevents you from focusing and doing your best work. Say ‘no’ to your boss, in the right way: Explain to your boss that adding more to your to-do list will hurt your performance. The path to greatness isn’t pleasing your boss all the time. It’s saying “no” so that you can apply intense effort to excel in a few chosen areas. More on how to say “no” to your boss here.
• Are you obsessing enough? Greatness at work requires obsessing over quality and an extraordinary attention to detail. Follow James Dyson and read here how his persistence has led to great success.

To learn more about how to attain extraordinary focus, read chapter 2 of Great at Work or watch the video “Why people cannot focus at work”.

• Are you focusing on the most valuable activities at work? Many people are busy at work, but they are not necessarily focusing on work that creates the greatest benefit for the organization. Write down the 3 most valuable activities you can pursue in your job. Then look in your calendar at the past two weeks: how much of your time is spent on those 3? Drop, delegate or postpone all the non-value activities.
• Ask “stupid” questions. Question the status quo to find more valuable ways of working. Why do we have staff meetings every Monday? Why do I have to fill in this form? Why don’t we call customers personally? Then come up with creative ways to do things better.
• Hunt for pain points. Customers and fellow employees may complain a lot about some things. That’s good—they’re in “pain.” You can add more value by fixing the problems that many people bitterly complain about!
• This graphic outlines five ways that you can use to redesign your work in order to create more value.

Curious to learn more? Read Chapter 3 of Great at Work for a deep dive into the Redesign Your Work principle.

• Focus on the quality of practice, not the quantity. Think about one skill you need to improve and break it down into small, concrete action items. For example, carefully try to improve the content of your sales pitch if you’re in sales (vs. repeating the same pitch 100 times). Embrace the “learning loop” to improve while working. Practice one action item per week and get feedback from your colleagues on how to improve, tweak it and go through the loop again, and stay with that for 4 weeks.
• Here are the first three tactics that will help you to implement the learning loop in your job. In chapter 4 of Great at Work you can learn more about all six looping tactics that will help you to become a top performer.
  1. Carve out just 15 minutes per day –Pick one and only one skill at a time to develop. You can make significant progress by only dedicating 15 minutes a day to improve a skill.
  2. Chunk it – break the skill down into small, concrete actions that you can take on a daily basis. Improve meetings? Start by asking better questions.
  3. Get nimble feedback, fast – quality matters! For best results ask a colleague for immediate feedback with suggestions for improvement (comments like “great meeting” or “spot on” will not help you to improve). Consider sending him or her a quick message to ask for feedback on how to improve.

• Passion is “do what you love,” while purpose is “do what contributes.” You need both at work. This video on Passion vs. Purpose explains the difference and how matching the two boosts performance. Or if you prefer a short article, click here.
• Find more passion in your current organization: Discover a new role. You can likely find that match of passion & purpose right where you are; you don’t have to leap to another profession. Seek a new role within your existing organization that better taps your passions and gives you a stronger sense of purpose.
• Look for more passionate activities at work: Feeling passionate about work isn’t just about taking pleasure in the work itself. Passion can also come from: success, creativity, social interactions, learning, and competence. Enroll in training courses (learning passion); spend more time with colleagues you like and that give you energy (people passion; seek creative tasks (energy passion), and so on.
• Climb the Purpose Pyramid. Infuse your present job with more purposeful activities. For example, seek one or two ways to add more value in your job (see the redesign principle). Or, pursue a job activity that has a clear social mission.
• You can learn more about how to match your passion and sense of purpose in chapter 5 of Great at Work.

• How do you inspire other people so that they will support your efforts? Try to arouse positive emotions about the goal you’re shooting for—feelings of excitement, happiness, thrill. The stronger the positive emotions, the more they will support you.
• Show, not just tell. If you’re remodeling the office, show people (in a drawing) how it will look like; don’t just tell them how it will be. They will then “see” and feel the new layout, get excited and support you. Use props, demos, drawings, photos, images, not just numbers and logic.
• Tell people WHY what you ask them to do is important and meaningful–the purpose behind the task. The WHY motivates more than just telling them WHAT to do.
• People are naysayers and may block your efforts. How do you overcome such obstacles and setbacks? Apply smart grit—tailor your responses to the situation, and don’t give up. Ask, how would I feel if I were in their shoes? Then when you see the issues from their point of view, you can respond cleverly. Maybe compromise, maybe confront. Can you find a way to get them on your side?
• Don’t go it alone. Mobilize support, by getting others to advocate on your behalf.

Read chapter 6 of Great at Work on how to compel others to support your efforts and apply smart grit to break down the opposition.

Meetings fill an increasing number of hours in the workday, and yet most managers and employees consider many of them a waste of time. We need better DEBATES in meetings to arrive at better decisions. Here are some ways you can just do that (as a leader or participant):

• Ask questions, don’t just state your opinion;
• Play devil’s advocate. “For the sake of argument,….;”
• Challenge ideas, not people;
• Build on others’ viewpoints (“if we expand on your idea….”);
• Listen, listen, listen (don’t be on your phone). Look at the person talking and summarize points made by others.

Read this article if you want to explore more tips on how to have a constructive debate.

Debating is not enough; you also need to arrive at decisions and COMMIT to decisions made so that they get implemented well. Here are a few tips:

• Make sure you commit to your to-do list. After the meeting, e-mail people and state what you will do, by when.
• If you’re the team leader: right after your next meeting, email the group and highlight what was decided, assign action items, who is accountable and by when they should deliver.
• Don’t make the discussion personal e.g. by yelling “you are stupid”. When people feel attacked, they won’t support decisions.
• Stop playing office politics and get behind decisions. Click here for some tips on how to stay out of office politics.

In this 3-minute video Morten Hansen explains the principles of Fight and Unite. For a deep dive into the Fight & Unite principle read chapter 7 of Great at Work.

To avoid the extremes of too little or too much collaboration, discipline collaboration by carefully selecting which collaboration activities to participate in (and reject others). Follow the five collaboration rules to make collaboration activities a success:

1. Establish the “business case”—a compelling reason—for any proposed collaboration initiative, small or large. If it’s questionable, say no.
2. Craft a unifying goal that excites people, so that they prioritize the collaboration project. Reward people for collaboration results, not activities.
3. Incentivize all parties (there’s something in it for them) and enforce accountability for delivery of work by setting milestones.
4. Collaboration requires trust between people. Tailor trust boosters—quickly—to specific trust problems in the partnership.
5. Commit full resources—time, skills, and money—to the collaboration project. Half-resourced collaboration projects won’t fly!

You can download here an overview of the Five Collaboration Rules.

If you are a manager or HR leader, you can conduct an audit of the various cross-business collaboration projects in your company based on the five collaboration rules and proceed only with the most valuable ones (stop the others!).

If you are curious to know more about how to collaborate well, read chapter 8 of Great at Work.