- Forget it to work 24 hours a day or have the highest IQ in the room. The most powerful billionaires and CEOs know exactly when cutting their way – and how to use their time better than anyone else, Bill Hoogterp reveals, career coach at Fortune 500.
Bill Hoogterp spent decades advising celebrities, CEOs, and rising stars within some of the most powerful meeting rooms in the United States. Through his coaching company, Lifehikes, he helped more than 700,000 professionals improve his communication and leadership skills – and worked personally with “thousands” of executives, many of whom appear on the most powerful lists of Fortune.
But if you think the secret of their success is gross intelligence or long hours of work, you are wrong. According to Hoogterp, one of the most consistent-and perhaps surprising-qualities shared by the ultra-suedits is laziness.
“I would say that there is a juxtaposition of almost contraindicative traits,” he tells Fortune. “Most successful people, if you know the most famous politicians, they were not necessarily the best students. They are not necessarily the smartest.”
“What most CEOs have – that almost no one else has – it’s an unusual ambition. Now, if you combine it with laziness, it creates a very good mix, because if you’re really hungry for success, but always looking for shortcuts, the combination of these two things leads to many small advances.”
As a laziness, he doesn’t mean they get their arms crossed or take a quiet vacation instead of working hard. “They think, ‘How can I do this faster, easier, better, and still have time and energy for other things?’” Hoogterp explains.
Shortcuts tested and approved for success: no long meetings, acronyms or individual meetings
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Many high profile founders incorporate Hoogterp’s paradoxical formula. They do not cut the way to make it easier, but to overcome competition, innovate faster and maintain agility in a dynamic market.
The most famous example is Mark Zuckerberg of the goal, which coined the phrase “moves fast and breaks things” by climbing Facebook to the $ 1.8 trillion giant today.
Similarly, Jeff Bezos’s main career advice for his former assistant Greg Hart was literally doing less and delegating more. “The less decisions come to the CEO, the faster the organization will move,” said the founder of Amazon.
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Jensen Huang, NVIDIA CEO and co -founder, does not hold individual meetings with its 60 direct subordinates – a deliberate strategy to accelerate innovation. This not only saves time, but also prevents ideas and problems from being isolated in private conversations. “Our company is designed for agility – so that information flows as soon as possible,” he said.
Elon Musk, in turn, has a list of rules for saving time and cutting bureaucracies, including banning long and frequent meetings, absence of rigid command chain and acronyms, as well as the incentive to get out of unnecessary conversations. “Get out of a meeting or turn off a call as soon as you realize you are not adding value,” said the Tesla chief. “It’s not a lack of education to go out, it’s lack of education to make someone stay and waste time.”
Only intelligence does not take to the top – nor guarantees a job
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Hoogterp’s statement that the most successful are not the smartest is true for hiring. Many ceos and founders say they value attitude more than aptitude.
Amazon’s AI chief told Fortune that making a response in an interview does not cost the job, but pretend to pretend. Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, also stated that attitude is the decisive feature for success – especially in their 20s.
Sarah Walker, head of Cisco in the UK, focuses on hiring people with positive energy and proactive attitude, as this is not taught. “It’s more about the person than about skills or experience,” she told Fortune.
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And not a few: about 80% of Fortune 500 companies use personality tests in their selection processes, as well as technology giants such as Amazon, Meta and Microsoft.
The positive attitude is so valued that some leaders prefer to get open places to risk hiring someone toxic. As Duolingo CEO to Fortune told, “It’s better to have a vacancy than an idiot.”
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