Reading Time: 2 min In Adam Grant’s excellent book “Give and Take“, he proposes that there are three kinds of people: Givers, Takers, and Matchers. The goal of the book is to show how being a giver is your best bet for long-term success and happiness. However, being a “giver” can be draining. In most studies, givers were the […]
Leadership
Love is greater than hurt feelings
Reading Time: 2 min Despite the title, I’m not advocating for being a jerk, but I also think there are times when some hard truths that lead to hurt feelings can be a good thing. In Annie Duke’s excellent book “Quit“, she shares some insight on this from Daniel Kahneman: When I asked Daniel Kahneman what he thinks the […]
Mistakes versus carelessness
Reading Time: < 1 min Many times when reading books, little things pop out at me that simply help me clarify how two words relate to one another. I’ve talked about a complaint versus a problem, social networking versus social media, interpersonal empathy versus social empathy, routines versus practices, attunement versus empathy, precision versus intent, knowing versus understanding, and dozens […]
It’ll be interesting to see how you guys figure this out
Reading Time: < 1 min Bo Burlingham’s book “Small Giants” covered 14 businesses that chose to stay small, as opposed to being bought out or going public, and the things they did to help them succeed. There were a ton of great lessons in the book, and I encourage you to check it out for yourself, but a great one […]
Make the charitable assumption
Reading Time: < 1 min It’s easy to make assumptions about other people. If someone is short with you, they might be a jerk. Or maybe they just lost their job, or lost a friend. It’s hard to know for sure, but if your initial thought is always that they must just be a jerk, that’s generally a bad outlook […]
The output of courage is curiosity
Reading Time: < 1 min It’s something I’ve never really thought about before, but in many cases it’s difficult to express curiosity without some degree of courage. On a recent episode of “The Long and The Short Of It” podcast, they unpacked this quite a bit. While it can be seen in a handful of different ways, Jen summed it […]
A complaint versus a problem
Reading Time: < 1 min Problems can be a great thing. Really, that’s what most companies do — they solve problems for their clients. I’ve shared before that I want people to bring me problems, and I find people that can help uncover problems to be very valuable. On the other hand you have people that complain, which is far […]
Work on development, not performance
Reading Time: < 1 min It can be tempting to focus everything on performance and metrics. Whether I’m talking about myself and what I accomplish, or what I look for from my team. Ultimately, though, a stronger focus on development will lead to far better long-term results. In his book “The Coaching Habit“, author Michael Stanier words it very well: […]
Set them free to do their thing
Reading Time: 2 min When building websites, or really any kind of marketing deliverable, we have to strike an interesting balance. On the one hand, we have a tight scope of work and a clear directive on what needs to happen. On the other hand, we’re not always sure exactly what that looks like. If someone needs a new […]
Keep your issues in the open
Reading Time: < 1 min Similar to the idea of “bring me problems” that I shared last year, having a culture where problems are welcomed can be a great thing. It reminds me of a story I heard about Alan Mulally and his work to turn Ford around in the 2010’s. One big thing that he did was encourage problems […]