Move less to accomplish more

Slow and steady

Not long after his debut in the top levels of soccer, Lionel Messi established himself as one of the most effective players in the world. He quickly gained renown for his tactical prowess, ball-handling skills, and playmaking abilities. His prolific scoring soon resulted in a slew of club championships and cup victories in Spain’s top league as well as in Europe-wide competitions.

His career has since been punctuated with numerous awards recognizing his performance as the top overall player and scorer of the season. When conversation turns to the best soccer players of all time his name is permanently on the shortlist. As an Argentine, he has assumed the mantle of the legendary Diego Maradona for a new generation of fans.1

Given the level of dominance he has achieved, it would be reasonable to assume that Messi is a workhorse on the pitch, running harder and faster and simply out-hustling other players to the ball when opportunities arise. One would expect him to demonstrate prodigious stamina during soccer’s long matches, where substitutions and breaks are minimal.

That assumption, while plausible, would be completely wrong.

When it comes to the distance covered during a game Messi is certainly an outlier—but he is alone at the bottom of the range, not the top. During intensely competitive matches against the world’s best talent, he spends more time than most simply walking, at a pace that even armchair athletes could manage.

Statistics show he covers less ground than almost any comparable player. During a standard 90-minute contest, he might cover only around 8 kilometers (5 miles) in total distance, less than even the referees.2 A review of top players in European club competition shows that Messi runs on average 30% less than his peers.

Instead of frantically expending energy, Messi stalks the field with rare focus and perceptivity. He isn’t distracted by chasing down loose balls, or dropping back to help on defense, or coming to extricate a teammate from a sticky situation. Instead he applies his nearly unmatched gifts at surgically precise moments, keeping them in reserve for opportunities where the attack is most devastating to opponents.

The results speak for themselves. At the conclusion of the recent Spanish season in May 2019, Messi once again led in goal count, and his Barcelona squad repeated as league champions.

Puttering around

Contrary to the ethos of hustling and frenetic, continuous activity that is spreading through the broader work environment, some at the very peak of their performance take a more deliberate approach.

As the founder and leader of Amazon, Jeff Bezos faces myriad potential decisions as his company expands its reach—according to his philosophy, it’s always Day 1 for the internet. Yet he claims the most important role of an executive is not involvement in minutiae but rather in making just three high-quality decisions a day. The world’s richest man prioritizes eight hours of sleep each night, spends time in the morning “puttering” around, and schedules his first meeting no earlier than 10 AM.

In a similar vein, legendary investor Warren Buffett spends 80% of his workday alone, reading quietly. He waits to engineer his next transaction only when the right opportunity presents itself. When it comes to his investing success, preparation and a steadily built-up knowledge base make the difference, not the churning activity that characterizes those intent on quickly finding some edge.3

This doesn’t mean that top performers aren’t exerting themselves in extraordinary ways. Messi has become the player he is only through focused development beginning in early childhood. He started with youth clubs at the age of four and progressively worked his way up the development ladder to senior teams, moving internationally for full-time training in his teenage years. In the early days of Amazon, Bezos ran the company from his garage and was personally organizing and shipping books at all hours. Buffett would regularly pore through thousands of pages of dense corporate reporting, mentally filing away information for later use.

At each stage, the elite focus their efforts on what’s needed to accomplish a specific goal. For an athlete, it’s winning competitions. For business leaders, it can be to create and capitalize on opportunities that others have not yet seen. Progress is a function of effort channeled towards a specific purpose, not just activity.

Leading well requires choosing your moment and acting precisely, instead of plunging into every thicket of potential decisions.

More light, less heat

Where does that leave those without the raw physical gifting of a world-class soccer player, or the steel-trap mind of a once-in-a-generation investor or entrepreneur? The rest of the population might feel the need to try everything just to keep up with the elite, even if it means flailing about.

What’s more, those like Bezos can afford to putter, or spend time cleaning the dishes as Bill Gates is known to, because vast organizations stand ready to do their bidding.4 Similarly Messi is a feared playmaker, so his mere presence distorts the rest of the action on the field. These leaders all have a pull that is almost gravitational. They know the world will orient around them while they choose what to focus on.

For everyone else, it’s not so easy to pick the highest-value activities and assume the rest will take care of itself. But that does not excuse actions that are undirected or poorly considered, because these activities always have a cost.

The athlete who has spent energy fruitlessly chasing the ball in unstrategic ways won’t have the reserves needed to react quickly when the critical pass catches the opposing defenders flat-footed. The organization that burns cycles on meetings and analyses that take time but don’t advance the mission will have less capacity to react when a meaningful window opens.

Those additional slides added to the presentation, or that next iteration of analysis, or that sixth meeting of the day—each consumes resources that could be put to more productive purposes.5 Top teams spend a significant percentage of their time observing, learning, and deciding what needs to be done before they act. High performers spend time in deliberate thought and training before they take the field (or manage the company).

For a soccer player, the goal tally at the end of the match makes it clear how effective your efforts were, and everything gets wrapped up neatly.6 Most of us don’t operate in a world where outcomes are so discrete. Those in more ambiguous environments have less obvious ways of measuring success, at least in the short term. To build the bridge between action and effectiveness, force the conversation that links your initiatives to a broader strategy. If the connection is tenuous or impossible to make, reconsider if those activities are really valuable.

In what ways are you preparing now, to be ready to act when the stakes are higher? How are you ensuring that your energy is directed to the actions that are most important?

References

FiveThirtyEight discussed Messi’s running patterns, with an earlier more in-depth study here.

Raw player statistics from UEFA.

Jeff Bezos describes his routine in an interview with Bloomberg.