Joe describes watching CEOs have breakthroughs when they realize that any energy-draining task can be restructured to be energizing. The question he asks teams is: “What could we do that would double the results and double the enjoyment?” This isn’t about making work easy — it’s about recognizing that enjoyment is actually more efficient than force.
When a CEO believes “I have to push myself through to get through,” their entire company absorbs that ethos. When they instead model finding energy in their work, they naturally organize the company so everyone has that same experience. Joe watched CEOs go from “I’m done, this sucks” to genuine excitement simply by removing false constraints and limiting beliefs about how work had to be done.
“If a CEO says oh it’s more efficient for me to figure out how to enjoy it, it’s more efficient for me to get energy from everything that I do, then they’ll start looking around seeing how powerful that is.”
This applies to negotiation too: Joe recommends starting with “how do you want to work together?” before discussing resources or salary, because alignment on enjoyment motivates more than compensation.
Related Concepts
- Enjoyment dissolves procrastination
- Leaders and culture co-create
- Energy management matters more than time management
- Not trying gets more done than trying