The ONE Thing: Book Club Recap
The ONE Thing is all about, literally, focusing on one thing to produce greater results. When you’re trying to achieve too many things at once, you can’t do your best work. Therefore, Keller suggests “going small” to narrow your focus. Going small forces you to focus on one thing.
Now there are plenty of recap websites or reviews that you can read if you’re interested in knowing more about the one thing. Instead, I asked some of our CSpring consultants what their biggest takeaways were from The ONE Thing and how they see them implemented (or are planning to implement) them in their lives.
THE DOMINO EFFECT
Chapter 2 is all about the domino effect. The domino effect is relatively self-explanatory, meaning you prioritize your tasks to ultimately reach your larger goal. Keller says this approach works “because extraordinary success is sequential, not simultaneous.” CSpring Consultant, Tracy Sage, comments, “The domino effect was a good take away for me. Setting aside dedicated time to focus on the smaller items will have a significant impact on my overall goals. It makes the larger goal feel more manageable, and you also have a lot of quick wins along the way.” Which is true, celebrating small accomplishments keeps morale high to achieve the overall goal.
FORMING ACTIONABLE HABITS
Director of Brand and Talent Strategy, Emma Myers, was more focused on the action that this book inspires. “You have to take action. You can sit and think about something all day long, but the action is the first domino,” she said. The book does a great job of encouraging readers to be introspective and reflect on what their one thing should be, which is half the battle, but the next half is actually getting up and doing it.
Chapter 6 was all about habits and the idea that it takes 66 days to create a new habit. The book even included a template to help us track our habits for 66 days. At our last meeting, we talked about holding one another accountable for the new habits we wanted to form through a 66-day habit challenge.
But just because you’ve practiced forming your habit 66 days in a row doesn’t necessarily mean you’re done. Data Scientist, Morgan Hogenmiller, shared, “Getting into the habit of something doesn’t mean you’ve mastered it. It talks about how mastery is not an end to a task or accomplishment in itself, but a way of thinking that involves always innovating and yearning for a better way to conquer the task at hand.”
FOSTERING OUR CULTURE
Our book club met weekly on Tuesdays during the lunch hour. We would read a few chapters and then come together to discuss rather than reading the book in its entirety. “My favorite part of book club was really just enjoying the company of others during a time when face-to-face communication was really limited. It’s really nice to connect with people on subjects that aren’t work-related. That’s not something that’s truly embraced at a lot of companies,” said Sr. Tableau Consultant, Clay McNeff. We started this book club in early February and quickly pivoted our efforts as our workforce shifted to working from home, but we still made sure to make time for book club. We applied concepts of The ONE Thing to both our personal and professional lives.
If your company has been thinking about starting a book club, I encourage you to do it! It’s been a great way to bring us together, get to know each other, and keep our minds stimulated outside of work.
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