Quotes about Efficiency

There are a lot of guys who average a lot of points, but they make the game hard for themselves, and they make the game hard for their teammates, and that's why you never really see them win or get deep in the playoffs.

Man is not a beast of burden, and the Sabbath is not for the purpose of enhancing the efficiency of his work.

If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend the first six of them sharpening my axe.

The feeling one has no time to get anything done provides the pressure that guarantees one does get some things done.

If someone had shown me a statement of Sawi grammar and asked me to guess the type of persons who developed it, I would have guessed a race of pedantic-philosopher types obsessed with fastidious concern for handling masses of detail efficiently.

That's been one of my mantras - focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex.

The primary reason we do too much is that we have never taken the time to discover that portion of what we do that makes the biggest difference.

Delegation—either to time or to other people.… Transferring responsibility to other skilled and trained people enables you to give your energies to other high-leverage activities. Delegation means growth, both for individuals and for organizations.

When a leader attempts to become well-rounded, he brings down the average of the organization's leadership quotient—which brings down the level of the leaders around him. Don't strive to be a well-rounded leader. Instead, discover your zone and stay there. Then delegate everything else.

I once heard John Maxwell say, "You are most valuable where you add the most value." It is vital to the health and success of our organizations that we as leaders discover that task, that narrow arena of responsibility where we add the most value. And once we find it, it's even more vital that we stay there.

If anything has kept me on track all these years, it's being skewered to this principle of central focus. There are many things I can do, but I have to narrow it down to the one thing I must do. The secret of concentration is elimination. (emphasis added) As you evaluate your current leadership environment and responsibilities, what do you see that needs to be eliminated? What needs to be delegated? What would it "not be right" for you to continue doing?

According to Stephen Covey, delegating to others is perhaps the single most powerful high-leveraging activity there is. There are people who love what you hate. Strengthen your team by setting them free to do what only they can do. In that way you will ensure that your organization reflects your strengths as well as the strengths of those around you.