Mark: A McKinsey survey found only 9% of executives are "very satisfied" with how they spend their time. Almost a third are actively dissatisfied. It seems the higher you climb, the less control you have. Or is there a different way to think about work entirely? Michelle: That's a terrifyingly low number. Nine percent! That means 91% of the people supposedly running things feel like their time is being hijacked. It’s the ultimate irony: you get the corner office, but you lose control of your own calendar. Mark: Exactly. And that feeling of being busy but not productive is the exact problem that our book today tackles head-on. We're diving into Robert Pozen's highly-regarded work, Extreme Productivity: Boost Your Results, Reduce Your Hours. Michelle: Oh, I like that title. It’s a bold promise. And Robert Pozen isn't just some productivity blogger, right? This is a guy with serious credentials. Mark: That’s the key thing to know about him. This isn't theory from an ivory tower. Pozen was the Vice Chairman of Fidelity Investments and the Executive Chairman of MFS Investment Management. We're talking about a man who has managed organizations with literally trillions of dollars in assets. When he talks about productivity, it's been tested in the highest-stakes environments imaginable. Michelle: Okay, that changes things. This isn't just another set of tips and tricks. This is a philosophy forged in the fire of global finance. So, what’s his big secret? How does he answer that 91% of dissatisfied executives? Mark: His core idea is a direct answer to that dissatisfaction. He argues that we've been measuring the wrong thing. We're obsessed with hours, with "face time," with looking busy. Pozen says true personal productivity is something else entirely. He defines it as "the quantity and quality of your results in achieving your own objectives." Michelle: That makes sense, but isn't that just a fancy way of saying 'work smarter, not harder'? We’ve heard that for decades. What's the actual method here that makes it different? Mark: The method is a complete mindset shift, and it’s best illustrated by a story from his own life. When he was interviewing to be general counsel at Fidelity, he had dinner with the legendary chairman, Ned Johnson. Pozen asked for a job description. Michelle: A reasonable request! Mark: Johnson’s reply was incredible. He said, "You want a job description? It's very simple: figure out what needs to be done and do it!" Pozen signed on immediately. That’s the mindset. It’s not about fulfilling a list of duties; it’s about identifying and achieving the most important outcomes.

Michelle: Wow. "Figure out what needs to be done and do it." That's either the most liberating job description ever or the most terrifying. There’s no hiding behind a checklist there. Mark: Exactly. And from that foundation, Pozen builds his whole framework on three big ideas. First, articulate your goals and rank them by priority. Second, focus on the final product. And third, don’t sweat the small stuff. Michelle: It’s like planning a road trip. You don't just start driving. You pick a destination, which is the goal. You visualize what it'll feel like to be there, which is the final product. And you don't let every single pothole or traffic jam derail you, because that’s the small stuff. Mark: That's a perfect analogy. And the most counterintuitive part is the second idea: focus on the final product. Most of us think we need to gather all the information, do all the research, and then figure out the answer. Pozen says to do the opposite. Michelle: Hold on, you start with the answer? How does that even work? Mark: He tells a great story about a researcher at Harvard Business School. She was asked to evaluate the strategy of a Chinese insurance company. After a week of intense research, she was drowning in data—financials, management bios, company history—but she had no idea what their strategy actually was. Michelle: I have been there. Analysis paralysis. It’s a real place. Mark: So Pozen gave her some advice. He told her to stop researching and instead, write down a tentative conclusion. A hypothesis. She hypothesized that the company was trying to become a "financial supermarket" for wealthy clients. Michelle: Okay, so she just made an educated guess. Mark: Precisely. And the moment she did that, everything clicked into place. Suddenly, she knew what to look for. She wasn't just collecting random facts anymore. She was testing her hypothesis. She could focus her remaining time on the critical questions: did they have the right technology for cross-selling? Was their staff trained for it? It gave her a filter for all the noise. Michelle: That’s a game-changer. It’s not about having the right answer from the start. It’s about having a question that’s sharp enough to guide you. It gives you a compass so you're not just wandering in the forest of information. Mark: A compass is the perfect word for it. It orients all your effort toward a specific destination, which is the final product.

Mark: And that idea of filtering the noise, of having a compass, is the key to his second big area: how you handle everything that isn't a top priority. Michelle: Ah, the small stuff. My mortal enemy. The endless emails, the pointless meeting invites, the little administrative tasks that breed like rabbits. Mark: Pozen has a fantastic principle for this, which he calls OHIO. It stands for "Only Handle It Once." Michelle: Only Handle It Once. I like the sound of that. Mark: He tells a personal story about getting a small tax deficiency notice from the state. He was busy, so he put it on a shelf to deal with later. A week later, he remembered it, but couldn't find the letter. He wasted an hour searching for it, and when he finally found it, he had to reread it to even remember what it was about. He spent more time managing the task of dealing with the letter than it would have taken to just deal with it in the first place. Michelle: I feel so seen right now. My desk is a graveyard of things I'll 'get to later.' So OHIO is about immediate decision-making. The moment something lands in front of you, you decide its fate: you either do it right then if it's quick, you delegate it, or you delete it. No purgatory. Mark: Exactly. No purgatory. And this connects to another one of his liberating ideas, which is the concept of "B+ work." Michelle: B+ work? My high-school self is shuddering. We're supposed to aim for B+? Mark: On low-priority items, absolutely. He tells the story of an accountant who was brilliant but whose career stalled. Why? Because he would spend a full week perfecting a quarterly sales report that his executives only needed for ballpark estimates. He was delivering A++ work on a C-level priority. Michelle: And in the meantime, he wasn't available for the big, important projects because he was stuck polishing the details on something that didn't matter that much. Mark: Precisely. His perfectionism became a bottleneck. Pozen's point is that your A+ effort is a finite, precious resource. You have to be strategic about where you spend it. For many tasks, a B+ is not only good enough, it's the most productive and efficient outcome. Michelle: That is so freeing. It's giving yourself permission to not be a superhero at everything. It’s strategic negligence. You consciously decide which balls are glass and which are rubber. You can let the rubber ones bounce.

Michelle: But what if the 'small stuff' is coming directly from your boss? Or what if you can't get your own high-priority work done because your team is constantly pulling you into their small stuff? You can't just give your boss a B+ on their request. Mark: That’s the perfect transition, because Pozen argues that in an organization, individual productivity is a myth. Your productivity is never just about you; it's deeply relational. And that starts with what he calls "managing up." Michelle: Okay, 'managing your boss' sounds a little… manipulative. Like something out of a cynical office politics handbook. Mark: It sounds that way, but the way Pozen frames it is completely different. He quotes the legendary management expert Peter Drucker, who said: "You don’t have to like or admire your boss... You do have to manage him, however, so that he becomes your resource for achievement, accomplishment, and personal success." Michelle: So it’s not about manipulation, it’s about building a partnership. Making them an ally in your own success. Mark: Exactly. It’s about understanding their priorities, their communication style—are they a reader or a listener?—and their weaknesses, and then adapting your own approach to make both of you more effective. You bring them solutions, not just problems. You give them advance warning. You make their job easier, which in turn makes your job easier. Michelle: That makes sense. You're essentially clearing the runway for your own projects by making sure the air traffic controller—your boss—is on your side and fully informed. Mark: And the flip side of that is 'managing down'—how you lead your team. Pozen’s big idea here is a principle he calls "Owning Your Own Space." He wants every part of the organization to feel like a small business. Michelle: What does that look like in practice? Mark: He tells an amazing story from a military war game. A Marine Corps general, Paul Van Riper, was tasked with commanding a rogue army against the United States. The U.S. side had overwhelming technological and firepower superiority. They should have won easily. Michelle: But they didn't, I'm guessing. Mark: They got crushed. Van Riper won because he used a decentralized command. He gave his officers clear objectives but total freedom on how to achieve them. They could adapt on the fly. Meanwhile, the U.S. command was a rigid, top-down hierarchy. By the time an order went up the chain and back down, the situation on the ground had already changed. Van Riper's forces were more agile because everyone 'owned their own space.' Michelle: So it's a two-way street. You manage up by anticipating your boss's needs and making their life easier. And you manage down by giving your team clear goals, but then trusting them with the autonomy to execute. The manager's job is to be a conduit for success, not a bottleneck for decisions.

Mark: When you pull it all together, Pozen's message is that productivity isn't a set of life hacks or a new app. It's a philosophy of intentionality. It's about reclaiming your agency from the relentless chaos of the modern workplace. Michelle: It really isn't about getting more done in a day. It's about getting more of the right things done. And his work forces you to accept that the 'right things' aren't just the tasks on your to-do list. They're the clarity of your goals, the quality of your relationships, and your courage to let the unimportant things be imperfect. Mark: That’s beautifully put. The courage to be imperfect on purpose. So if there's one thing listeners could try this week, maybe it's to look at their calendar for tomorrow and ask Pozen's question for every single meeting: "What is my objective here? What is the final product I want to walk away with?" Michelle: And if you can't answer that question clearly… maybe that meeting becomes an email. Or maybe it just disappears. A little calendar magic. Mark: A little strategic negligence. I love to hear what our listeners think. What's the one piece of 'small stuff' you're going to give yourself permission to do 'B+' work on this week? Let us know on our socials, we'd be fascinated to see what you choose to let go of. Michelle: I'm already making my list. It’s long. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.