4
Deciding What Matters Most
Defining the Problem
Albert Einstein said, “If I had one hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and only 5 minutes finding the solution.” So let's define the problem, or, more accurately, the opportunity, which in our case is deciding what matters most. The obvious questions are “How do I know what matters most?” and “How do we figure it out?”
There are any number of ways to go about determining what is, or should be, most important in your business and your work. Let's think it through by looking at the question from a number of different perspectives. At the end you can take those elements that resonate with you, the ones that feel right, and make your own determinations. For those of you who want this to be totally a “thinking thing” and not be about how it feels, that's fine. You can drive the whole process with numbers. Do it with metrics. That's an option.
You can see from the examples of successful companies and people throughout this book that there are almost unlimited perspectives on this. To try to name one approach as the correct one is simply silly. Who's right? Tony Hsieh with his very human, very heartfelt philosophy at Zappos that focuses on team and family as being most important or former Harvard Business School professor Gary Loveman, chief executive officer (CEO) of Harrah's Entertainment, who is driven purely by the numbers? They're both right, because their respective approaches work well for each ...
