Reading Time: < 1 min If you’re in a suddenly stressful situation, freaking out is likely to make things worse. It can be hard to control, but staying calm, particularly if you’re in a position of leadership during the event, can make a huge difference. From Ryan Holiday’s excellent book “The Daily Stoic“, he shares: There is a maxim that […]
Leadership
Is reading work?
Reading Time: 2 min In episode 179 of The Long and The Short Of It podcast, hosts Pete and Jen argue that reading for knowledge should be considered “work”, and therefore it’s acceptable to do during the workday. I don’t disagree, but it’s tricky. I read quite a lot, and most of it is for the benefit of our […]
Leadership means you do more
Reading Time: < 1 min As people grow in their roles, the thought is often that they’ve earned the right to do less work, and perhaps that’s valid. However, simply having the ability to work less generally isn’t the right thing to do if you’ve moved into a leadership role. While your work may largely shift from manual tasks to […]
Being the best talker doesn’t mean you have the best ideas
Reading Time: < 1 min This is something a lot of organizations struggle with – the loudest and/or best talker in the room often gains the approval of those around them, based solely on their manner. They may happen to have the best ideas, but those two things don’t necessarily go together. In her book “Quiet“, author Susan Cain sums […]
Assume good intentions
Reading Time: 2 min As digital communication continues to expand into different formats, it can be increasingly difficult to determine the intentions of the person you’re talking to. Of the various common ways that we might communicate, I think intention becomes more difficult to discern as you work down this list: In person Video call Phone call Email Text […]
Would that decision look good in the newspaper?
Reading Time: 2 min If you have an important decision to make, considering whether you’d want it published in the newspaper can be a good way to frame it for yourself. Even if it’s a personal, private decision, thinking about how others could interpret it can be a valuable thinking exercise. In the book “The Personal MBA“, author Josh […]
No decision can be 100%
Reading Time: < 1 min Decision-making can be a tricky thing, in a number of ways. First, you have the issue of determining when you have enough information to make a solid decision. As Josh Kaufman said in The Personal MBA, “no decision, large or small, is ever made with complete information“. How do you even know what “complete information” […]
Data beats Modal Bias
Reading Time: < 1 min The concept of “modal bias” is simply the thought that our idea or approach is best. We all think that, but it can become much more troublesome when a HiPPO (the highest paid person in a meeting) falls into that trap and we all need to follow it. Once a HiPPO thinks they have the […]
All feedback is just data – right?
Reading Time: 2 min I was recently reading David Bradford’s book “Connect“, and I came across an interesting statement: Feedback can elicit strong emotions, especially when it contains a grain of truth, but there’s no such thing has “constructive” or “negative” feedback – all feedback is just data. My first thought was that I didn’t agree. While the core […]
Absence Blindness rewards drama
Reading Time: < 1 min Absence Blindness is a cognitive bias that prevents us from identifying what we can’t observe. It seems pretty obvious — if we can’t observe something, of course we’ll be blind to it. That shouldn’t always be the case, though, and absence Blindness can lead to two problems. First is the lack of ability to “do […]