Bertrand Russell, the great mathematician and philosopher, tells the story of a young English nobleman on a grand tour of Europe before the First World War. He encounters twelve young beggars in Naples, lying inert in the shade. “Who is the laziest of you all?” the visitor asks. “I’ll give you a coin.” Eleven of the boys jump up, begging for the lira. But he gives it to the twelfth vagrant, who hasn’t moved a muscle.
Russell then makes some serious points:
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface; secondly, telling other people to do so. The first is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid. The second kind is capable of indefinite extension: there are not only those who give orders, but those who give advice on what orders should be given.
I think there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous ... The road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.[1]
I spent my first working life as a ‘strategy consultant’. The two consultants who were most successful – both in building their firms, and in changing the way America and the world did business – were Bruce Henderson, founder of the Boston Consulting Group, and Bill Bain, the boss of Bain & Company. They were also the laziest consultants I have ever known, by a wide margin.
BCG, originally the Management Consulting Division of the Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company, was not an overnight success. Despite lean pickings, Bruce quickly higher consultant Arthur Contas, and as soon as he could afford to do so, Bruce stopped doing any consulting work himself.
Instead, he focussed on ideas, writing BCG’s Perspectives and developing his unique style of provocative and laconic writing, leading to BCG’s first great breakthrough – the growth/share matrix, with its cash cows (originally gold mines), dogs, stars, and question-marks. By doing only what he wanted to do, he drafted a blueprint for a vastly better use of resources in business.
[1] Bertrand Russell (1932) ‘In Praise of Idleness’, http://grammar.about.com/od/praiseidleness.htm
William Worthington Bain, Jr. – Bill Bain or Mr Big to his overpaid and overworked serfs – is another wonderful illustration of economy in action. Despite not having a business degree, he rose swiftly within BCG and headed one of four teams. Bill’s team demonstrated the greatest growth in revenues, as he was trying out his ideas about the process of consulting, and the development of a very close working relationship between consultants and the CEO of the client.
In 1973 Bill stunned Bruce by resigning and setting up in competition. In 1980, after pretty much a failed career at BCG, I thought I might do better at Bain, and I was fortunate to be interviewed by Bill himself. Within a couple of years, to my amazement, and everyone’s else’s, he asked me to become one of his (junior) partners. All the partners from around the world had to travel to Boston each month for a meeting, which Bill ruled with consummate authority. He was one of the most impressive and singular people I’ve ever met – he created an extraordinarily successful and lucrative firm with the minimum of personal effort. Like Bruce Henderson, he rapidly withdrew from all client work.
But Bill added enormous value, and in his case, it was his formula for how the consultants should relate to their clients. Bill had a vision of a consulting firm in an intimate relationship with a small number of big client firms. In his view, a consulting engagement was like a marriage – a long-term partnership of equals for mutual benefit. It probably had not taken Bill long to develop his ingenious formula and then build his firm around it, so that his five leading lieutenants then spread the religion inexorably throughout the firm. But the value created for both clients and Bain & Company was astronomical. The firm itself was based around enthusiasm for the Bain way and mutual support of all professionals – there was none of the scepticism and heresy tolerated and even encouraged within BCG. So each firm had its ecological niche – BCG had the high ground on concepts and intellect, while Bain & Co was all about effectiveness and increasing the value of the client companies, along with that of Bain itself.
I have said that Bill and Bruce were lazy, but you should understand that for me this a term of approbation. If they had worked harder, they would have been hugely less effective, and perhaps nobody would ever have heard about them. Because they had plenty of time to reflect, and because their reflections were dynamite, they were able to change the world, and have a very congenial life into the bargain.
This kind of super-performer is lazy, but theirs is an unusual kind of laziness, closely related to creativity. Their brilliance gave them the confidence to be lazy, and their laziness gives them the freedom to find shortcuts to better results through less effort. Bruce and Bill would not have been so lazy if they had not been so imaginative; and they would not have been so imaginative if they had worked harder. The strongest link is between laziness and self-indulgence, on the one hand, and a kind of inspired determination, on the other. We do not normally associate idleness with determination, but the determination to find a much better solution involving much less effort is the highest form of laziness.
Laziness and selectivity go hand in hand. The lazy manager has to be selective; and the selective manager can afford to be lazy. Selectivity and success are closely related, too. Once you understand that very few actions and decisions have a disproportionately huge impact on your career or the fortunes of your firm, you naturally search for those few big breaks. You don’t sweat the small stuff, because small drives out big. Look at Warren Buffett, the world’s most successful investor; the great majority of his fortune, he says, has come from fewer than ten crucial decisions. It is easier to make a few really good decisions if you don’t waste your time on things that will never be life-changing. Laziness, selectivity, and confidence compound each other; they are the best short formula for extraordinary achievement.
This blog is an expanded version of a thought-piece posted by me on Forbes.com on September 26th.