Being an Essentialism Bishop | An Interview with Greg McKeown

This is a rebroadcast. The episode originally ran in August 2016.
Greg McKeown has dedicated his career to discovering why some
people and teams break through to the next level—and others don’t.
The definitive treatment of this issue is addressed in his New York
Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, Essentialism: The
Disciplined Pursuit of Less. Greg hosts The Essentialism Podcast
and is the CEO of McKeown Inc., with clients including Adobe,
Apple, Google, Facebook, Pixar, Salesforce.com, Symantec, Twitter,
VMware, and Yahoo!. Originally from London, England, Greg now lives
near Phoenix, Arizona, with his wife Anna and their family. In this
interview Greg and Kurt talk about how the principle of
Essentialism applies to his calling as bishop and the culture
at-large in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At the
time of this recording, Greg was serving as bishop of his ward in
California. Highlights 1:30 Introduction and Greg’s background and
how he ended up in America 9:00 Greg’s testimony development 14:00
How Greg met his wife 16:30 Greg was a coauthor with Liz Wiseman on
the book, Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter.
19:00 Getting called as bishop 21:50 What is Essentialism? The
disciplined pursuit of less. 22:40 Greg talks about his book
Essentialism and why he wrote it. 30:30 The closet analogy of
essentialism and how it relates to leadership Our obligation as
leaders is not to our traditions, to the past, or to what other
people are doing. Strip away all the things that are
non-essentials. 36:30 The power of saying no. Can I say no to
“inspired” requests? Remember to pause and think. Remember that the
Lord’s voice wins over any other voice. Divine tradeoffs are a
requirement of our lives. There are always hard tradeoffs. There
are good and great things but we need to do the essential things.
43:20 Think of all the things that Jesus DIDN’T do. He didn’t feel
the obligation to do everything. He did His Father’s will. 45:30
How do you create a culture of essentialism in your ward? Focus on
the people instead of the programs and activities. When it comes to
meetings in the church, have a tight purpose and a loose agenda.
55:45 Thomas S. Monson’s experience struggling with the social
obligations of his calling versus following the spirit. His life
was a beautiful example of putting people first and the social
obligations second. 58:30 Think about what sacrifice really is. For
thousands of years it meant to kill and to cut a baby lamb. In our
day it means to eliminate, or to make a tradeoff. You can’t do it
all. Links Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most GregMcKeown.com
7 Unbreakable Rules of a Meeting Liz Wiseman Interviews &
Articles on LeadingSaints.org Creating Essential Change In Your
Organization | An Interview with Greg McKeown Get 14-day access to
the Core Leader Library Read the TRANSCRIPT of this podcast