Over the past few days, many of you will have seen the images coming out of France. Huge protests. Streets blocked. Cars on fire. Shop windows smashed. In Paris, in Lyon, in Marseille, and in many other cities.
As some of you know, and as some of you may have guessed from my accent, I was born in France. In Paris, in fact. So watching those images from Sydney was hard. These are streets I know. Streets I walked as a kid. Streets where family and friends of mine live and work today.
This is not the place to explain what is happening, or why. My thoughts are simply with everyone in France right now, and I hope calm returns soon.
Those images are not the Paris I carry with me. People often ask me which city I think is the most beautiful in the world. It’s always a friendly debate, and my answer hasn’t changed. It’s Paris. I love living in Sydney. But for sheer beauty, Paris is something else.
So this week, I want to share a different story about Paris. A story about a city that found a better way, by doing the exact opposite of what everyone expected.
Over the years, I watched the traffic there grow out of control: more cars, more motorbikes, endless congestion.
For years, the local council tried to manage the flow by making things more efficient, tweaking traffic lights and trying to organize the chaos. It would work briefly, and then completely collapse. They were fighting an impossible equation: trying to fit a never-ending volume of traffic into a strictly finite space.
In this video, I want to talk about a constant fight leaders face every day, and why the only real solution is to stop fighting it.
About ten years ago, the council in Paris realized they couldn’t win that fight. So, they did something radical: they went completely the other way. They restricted cars, slashed parking spots, and closed major roads. I remember Les Quais de Seine, a major boulevard crossing the city from east to west, being completely shut down and converted into a walking area. People shouted that they were mad! But by changing their strategy, they transformed the city. Today, moving through Paris is far more enjoyable because the volume of cars has drastically dropped. I see leaders fighting that exact same impossible battle every single day.
We’ve moved from letters to faxes to emails to instant messaging, and the volume is relentless. We’ve gone from a couple of daily meetings to back-to-back video calls, on top of an overwhelming list of key projects. Trying to manage or optimize an infinite amount of work within a finite amount of time is a lost cause.
My suggestion? Stop fighting the battle. Shift your strategy completely:
- Fewer Key Projects: Have the courage to choose only two or three Big Rocks each quarter, and deliberately decide what you are not going to do.
- Fewer Meetings: Review your calendar for the past two weeks and the next two weeks. Look for the meetings you don’t actually need to attend and cancel them. Most leaders I work with easily reclaim two to three hours every single week just by doing this.
- Fewer Distractions: We live in a world of constant pings and notifications. Turn them off, step away from social platforms, and protect your focus.
So my question to you is: where are you fighting an impossible-to-win battle, and how can you change your mentality to go completely the other way?
This is this week’s Work Smarter: Live Better tip.
You have a lovely day.
À bientôt,
Cyril
